


Could Be Fun

by MissDavis



Series: Could Be Fun [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Although I guess it should be humour but it's not, Anal Sex, Canon Compliant, Hand Jobs, Humor, John occasionally has some issues though, Johnlockary - Freeform, Married Sex, Mary has the best ideas, Multi, Oral Sex, POV John Watson, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Polyamory, Post-Season/Series 03, Sexual Humor, Sherlock's just along for the ride, Smut, Threesome - F/M/M, Vaginal Sex, Virgin Sherlock, we're gonna need a bigger bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-15 01:23:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2210391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissDavis/pseuds/MissDavis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mary," I said, gasping.  "You're going to kill me someday."</p><p>"Never," she whispered, tucking up sideways against me.</p><p>"God," I said, and turned so I could throw one arm lightly over her.  "Sherlock?"</p><p>"Shut up," she said.  And I did.  Because that's what we did.  She talked with that filthy mouth of hers and we both liked it and then it was done until the next time.  We didn't discuss it because it was just words, nothing real. </p><p>Except now it was the next morning and she was sitting in the middle of our bed talking about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"It could be fun, John," Mary said, the next morning, looking over at me from where she sat cross-legged in our bed, the Sunday paper scattered all around her.

I sat down carefully next to her, cradling my mug of hot tea and wondering if my wife had lost her mind. It wasn't the first time I'd had that thought, of course. By now I was quite used to knowing everyone I loved was completely insane. I even kind of liked it. Sometimes. Okay, most of the time. But this time Mary might have finally gone too far. 

It was early, the baby was still asleep and we hadn't been awake for very long, just long enough for me to fetch the paper in and brew a pot of tea. We'd had a rather late night, though it hadn't started that way. At least, I'd been intending to go to sleep when we went to bed, but then she'd said something that made me giggle, and then I couldn't stop so I had to tickle her to make her laugh, too, and then she rolled on top of me to make me stop, which made me start kissing her, and then it turned out neither one of us was actually that tired after all.

Now, we've been together a little while, Mary and I, and even from the beginning she's been pretty adventurous in bed. Looking back, that maybe should've clued me in that there were other _adventurous_ aspects to her life that I didn't know about, but hey. What it came down to was we were good in bed together and she was pretty much willing to try anything at least once. 

But we hadn't done anything new or unusual last night. Like I said, it was kind of a spur of the moment decision--it's not like she prepared ahead of time and brought home some new toy. 

What she did last night was talk. Which I like. I love her filthy mouth and her even filthier imagination. I've always liked a woman who talks during sex, telling me what she feels, what she wants me to do. I like the feedback, a little positive reinforcement. Mary takes it to a whole new level. She'll tell me what she's feeling, then she'll tell me what she wants me to do, and then sometimes she'll just start making shit up. Fantasies. She just says whatever pops into her mind that she thinks will get us both going. I don't think it's always even things she actually wants to do, or things that are feasible or even possible. I mean who in London even has a pickup truck? With a gun rack and lariats in the back?

But usually she picks things that aren't just her fantasies, but have more appeal to me. Most of the time I've never even thought of them before, but then she starts talking and oh, God, does she make stuff sound good. Like the time a couple months ago when we were in the middle of a nice, slow fuck and then she'd rolled me over so she was on top and said, "Imagine if I had a twin sister, how would that be? She'd probably be sitting on your face right now, and I'd wrap my hands around her waist and you'd do us both at the same time. Would you do that, John? Would you like it?"

I grunted an affirmative and then froze mid-thrust. "Do you have a twin sister?" I asked.

Mary looked down at me, surprised. "No, of course not," she said in her normal tone, not the sexy fantasizing-out-loud voice she had been using. "But if I did, and she was here right now . . . ." She slipped right back into the fantasy and our nice, slow fuck turned into an even nicer fast one. 

She'd used the twin idea a few times over the past few months, not every time we had sex, certainly, but more than once. 

But last night, it wasn't her imaginary twin she started talking about.

I was kneeling over her and she was sucking me off when she suddenly pulled back and started pushing my hips, trying to guide me down her body. "Sorry, sorry," she said. "Just, I need you to get in me now, okay?"

"Okay," I breathed, and slid down her front until our hips lined up. She was wet and very ready and I slid easily into her. It honestly didn't matter right then where she wanted me, as long as I was in her and she didn't stop. 

She didn't stop. She had her hands on my shoulders and she was slamming herself against me and now that her mouth was free she started talking. "Oh, God, John, yes, you feel so good. Keep doing that, keep doing that." She didn't need to worry. I wasn't stopping. 

"Oh, I can still taste you in my mouth, though," she went on. "Mm, I wish you were still there." No, she didn't; she was enjoying me right where I was if the way her hips were responding was any indication. They were just words, her saying whatever popped into her head to keep us both in the moment. I closed my eyes and let my whole body rest along hers as I thrust, keeping just enough weight on my arms so I wouldn't hurt her.

"Oh, John. John. Oh, my mouth. John, what if someone else was here, and he was in my mouth right now?"

I grinned and kept on going. It looked like I was about to get an imaginary twin brother. Whatever made her happy.

"Oh, yes, and I could suck him while you fucked me. Oh, that would be so good, wouldn't it?" She slid both hands up along my neck and tangled them in my hair. I nuzzled her ear and didn't say anything, because I knew she wasn't really looking for a response and anyway, words seemed a bit too complicated right then.

"Mmm, John, yes." Hands still in my hair, she tugged my head sideways into a kiss, then pushed me away again so she could keep talking. "I would suck him while you--" She finished the thought with a particularly energetic uptilt of her hips and I gasped.

"Yes, okay," I said. Not because I particularly wanted another man in our bed or was even really thinking about it but because I wanted her to just keep doing what she was doing. Pretty sure I would've agreed to anything right then, but it didn't matter because her little whispered fantasies were just that--fun in the moment, sexy as hell and not anything we would ever do for real. So yeah, I kept fucking Mary while she moaned about some other guy. It was good.

And then she said, "Mmm, John, John, John. I'd suck him and suck him and suck him and . . . . Oh! What if it was Sherlock?"

My hips stuttered and missed a beat and I opened my eyes. Her face was inches from mine and her eyes were still closed, her mouth open, panting. She bucked her hips hard against me-- _keep going!_ \--and I did. God help me, I kept going. And she kept talking. 

"Ooh, Sherlock could do this with us and I'd suck him off while you fucked me and you could press your chest against his back and . . . ."

Holy shit, what was she trying to do to me? And why was my body going along with it and now my brain actually seemed willing to get in the act because I closed my eyes and I could picture what she was saying and oh my God I didn't stop fucking her, I just sat up a little so I could better imagine what she was describing.

"Mmm, yeah, John, you're pressed up against him while he's in my mouth and it's Sherlock so he's a little too tall but I could still reach up and grab his hair, don't you think? Because his hair, John, oh my God, I want to touch it and wrap my fingers in it just like I'm doing right now with yours." She tightened her hands in my hair. I must need a haircut because she had quite a good grip. "Is his hair soft, do you think, John? Is Sherlock's hair soft?"

"Feels like hair," I answered, my voice a little hoarse. "Gets greasy fast. Not that soft." Was I really bad-mouthing Sherlock's hair while Mary and I were fucking?

"You've touched his hair? Those curls?" She opened her eyes but kept moving her hips and kept her hands twisted in my hair, tugging just a little in counterpoint to the rest of her body's thrusts.

"Mm-hmm. Lots of times." I didn't elaborate, because honestly the image of Sherlock was slipping away now as I got closer and closer to the edge. But sure, I'd lived with the man for years. I'd dragged his half-conscious body into his bed more than once, when someone had drugged him or he'd drugged himself and needed to sleep it off. I'd washed blood off his forehead and stitched his scalp shut. Yeah, I'd touched his hair.

I lowered myself back down against her. "All right, shut up now Mary because I'm--. It's . . . ." That was the most I could manage but she knew where I was. She linked her hands behind my head and started kissing me again, whispered, "Go ahead, do it."

A few more seconds and then pretty much all my thoughts were gone as I came hard into her and then slowed. I didn’t stop all the way because she brought her hand down in between us and started working herself and then not a minute later, before I was even all the way soft inside her, she moaned, "Coming!" but she didn't really need to tell me because her back arched and her hands clenched and her cunt pretty much squeezed my spent cock right out as she convulsed. 

We both panted for a few seconds and then I carefully collapsed on top of her before rolling off onto my back. "Mary," I said, gasping. "You're going to kill me someday."

"Never," she whispered, tucking up sideways against me.

"God," I said, and turned so I could throw one arm lightly over her. "Sherlock?"

"Shut up," she said. And I did. Because that's what we did. She talked with that filthy mouth of hers and we both liked it and then it was done until the next time. We didn't discuss it because it was just words, nothing real. 

# # #

Except now it was the next morning and she was sitting in the middle of our bed talking about it.

"Mary, are you even listening to yourself? It wouldn't be fun. It would be awkward and uncomfortable and--and messy and . . . ."

"Messy?" 

"Well, he's such a slob normally." Okay, I had no idea what I was saying right now. Apparently I'd picked up Mary's habit of just opening my mouth and letting words fall out. I sipped at my tea and thought, _And he'd be jabbing us both with those bony elbows._ Why was it so easy to picture? I shook my head and took a deeper gulp of the tea. "Why are you even thinking about this? Are you--do you _like_ Sherlock?" 

"Well, come on, John. I mean, he's a very attractive man. Obviously."

"Maybe it's obvious to you," I said, looking down into my mug.

Mary pushed the papers off her lap and reached over to grab my mug away from me. She clunked it onto the table next to her side of the bed and then scooted closer to me, grabbed my arm. "Oh, come on, John. It's okay. I know how you look at him." She rested her sleep-mussed head against my upper arm and I sighed.

"Everyone is always saying that to me. I'm not gay."

She laughed against my arm. "I know that, you idiot. I'm married to you. That doesn't mean you can't appreciate Sherlock, too."

 _Appreciate Sherlock._ Now there was a phrase. I took two slow, deep breaths and said, "Mary. Even if I wanted to-- _appreciate Sherlock_ \--and I'm not saying I do, even if we both wanted to, I somehow think he wouldn't be exactly interested in the idea."

"Yes, he would."

I twisted my neck to peer down and try to meet her eyes. "You seem very sure of that."

"I am." She rubbed her face against my arm and smiled and I . . . sometimes I think it's better not to know, but I usually have to ask anyway.

"Have you and Sherlock discussed this already?"

"No, of course not."

"Okay. Can I have my tea back, please?"

She handed me the mug and I sipped at it and picked up a random piece of the newspaper to read. I think it might have been the sports section. "Have you and Sherlock not discussed this but communicated in some mysterious, unspoken manner that resulted in you both agreeing that this might be something you and he would enjoy?"

"Why don't you just text him and ask if he wants to come over after dinner sometime this week?"

"Why don't you text him and ask him that?"

"That would just be weird, John."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock agrees to visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any and all comments are appreciated. I'm clearly not British, so feel free to point out any inaccuracies. Sorry about the American spelling!

It took me all week to work up the nerve, but on Friday I texted Sherlock.

_-Mary was wondering if you wanted to come over tomorrow night after dinner._

_-Mary was wondering? SH_

_-We both were._

_-Very well. Not for dinner? SH_

_-You can certainly come for dinner if you want. We've been eating early so we can put the baby to bed by 7._

_-I see. I don't expect to be hungry tomorrow evening. SH_

Of course he didn't. That's why I didn't invite him for dinner. Just for--whatever it was we were going to do, instead. I didn't know what to say other than "come on over." Maybe he already knew what was going on. Maybe he was completely oblivious. I decided to just let him show up and we'd see what happened. This was going to be a disaster.

_-Bring wine._

_-Wine? SH_

_-Yes. We're out._

_-What kind? SH_

_-Whatever you want to drink. I'll probably stick to beer._

_-What about Mary? SH_

_-She's not drinking._

_-Is she pregnant again? Good Lord, John, how old is she now? What are you going to do with two children? Do you not take precautions? SH_

_-What? No, no, God no. She just said she doesn't want to drink, that's all._

Her exact words when I'd suggested this might be easier if we all got tipsy--or spectacularly drunk--had been, "Hell no, I want to be sober for this."

_-I see. SH_

_-Thank you, John. I'll be there tomorrow around 8. SH._

# # #

I got another text at 8:05 the next night.

_-Coming up the walk. Don't want to ring the bell and wake the little one. SH_

"Shit. He's here. Mary, he's here."

Mary was sitting calmly in the living room, reading something on her phone. She clicked it off and stood up, straightened her skirt. She wasn't particularly dressed up, but her clothes were a little nicer than what she would normally wear for an evening at home. Long gauzy skirt, pink blouse, earrings and low heels instead of the slippers she'd usually have on by this time of night. 

I'd had a shower after dinner and then put my regular clothes back on, but five minutes later I'd taken off my jumper because I was sweating so much. I was wearing a blue checked shirt that I knew Sherlock liked. I don't even know why I knew that he liked it, but I did, and that alone was making me uncomfortable. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and Mary stepped in front of me.

"John." She straightened my collar and then rested her hands on my shoulders. "If you don't want to do this, then say so right now. I'll let Sherlock in and we can watch telly together instead."

I squared my shoulders back and met her eyes. I knew she wanted this, but she would stop it if I said so. A small part of me was still squeamish and embarrassed: Sherlock was a man. I've never gone for men, and I didn't want to start now. A bigger part of me recognized that this was potentially an excellent way to destroy not only my marriage but also the greatest friendship I would ever have. But the part of me that I listen to the most--and I don't know if it's my head or my heart or my soul--said what it always says when Mary or Sherlock is involved: Do it. Do what they want you to do. It doesn't matter if it's dangerous or illegal or just plain stupid--it's Mary and Sherlock. Do what they want. 

"I want to do it. Let him in."

Mary nodded and I followed her to the front door.

# # #

"I didn't bring wine," Sherlock said.

"That's okay, I've only had one beer," I replied and turned away, leaving Mary to let him in. One look at him stalking up our front steps, that ridiculous coat swirling out behind him, and the nerves I had been feeling all day suddenly tripled. Because he looked good. To me. Sherlock looked good.

Okay, Sherlock always looked good, I knew that. I mean, he was always perfectly dressed and put together. And Mary was right, he was obviously good-looking. I knew that, but usually it just made me think things like, God, why can't I look both slim and strong at the same time? Or, if I were that tall, I'd get a coat just like that so I could show it off, too.

But now, just now, as he was stepping into my house with his thin, tall strength and his perfect hair and the tip of his nose and ears slightly pink from the cold, my thoughts about Sherlock went a bit further than that. I thought about what we were about to do, about going into the bedroom with both Mary and Sherlock, and the idea was suddenly very good, very appealing. I took a deep breath and went to join them in the sitting room.

# # #

"So, Sherlock," Mary began, setting a plate of biscuits out in front of him on the coffee table and then sitting primly at the far end of the sofa, leaving the space of a cushion between them.

"I know why I'm here," he said, starting to reach for a biscuit and then pulling his hand back as if he'd changed his mind. 

"You do?"

"I admit, even after John's unusual text messages yesterday, I still thought there was about a thirty percent chance I was just being invited over for another nonsensical movie night, but once I arrived, well."

Mary raised her eyebrows; listening to Sherlock's deductions is still a pretty novel experience for her. "Tell me," she said.

"That blouse and the skirt are nice, though it would not be unheard of for you to wear them at home. But those earrings are too heavy for you to have had on all day. Even if you'd worked today and worn them, you'd have taken them off before you picked up the baby so she wouldn't grab at them. And your shoes, Mary. They're brand new, aren't they? I know you went up half a shoe size while you were pregnant and then discovered that the increase was permanent--it's mostly caused by stretching of the ligaments due to hormones, not an increase in weight, so losing the pregnancy weight doesn't reverse the change. You've had to buy all new shoes. It's November, but those are a spring style and color and the stores have just started bringing their new spring collections out. Good thing, too; wouldn't want to have to wait until Christmas was over to buy new sandals and swimsuits."

Mary laughed. "Brilliant, Sherlock. How'd I ever manage to fool you about my past all those months after we first met?"

He narrowed his eyes, but he was smiling. "I was dazzled by your smile. I've since learned to pay more attention to you, Mary." He nodded toward me and waved a hand. 

"John's always been dead easy to read. His hair's damp from the shower but he's gotten dressed again. In that blue shirt he knows I like. And he's wearing the cologne he uses when he thinks he might get lucky. He usually saves it until the third or fourth date."

Mary laughed again. "Ooh, I think it was the second date you wore it for me, wasn't it, John?"

For half a moment I felt a twinge of annoyance, that he was so sure of himself even in this situation and that Mary was so impressed, but it passed, quickly replaced, not just by the usual awe at his deductions, but by a growing trickle of arousal as I thought about what was about to happen. I considered sitting in between them on the sofa, but that seemed like it would be awkward, so I leaned against the arm of the sofa next to Mary instead, resting a hand on her shoulder. 

Sherlock reached out toward the coffee table again and this time took a biscuit, although I think he just wanted something to fidget with, because he didn't actually eat it. Instead he said, "I've never--"

"With a woman?" I asked, just as Mary said, "With two people?"

"With anyone." His deep voice was absolutely regulated, and most people would've thought he was completely calm and in control, but I knew him well enough to tell that he was nervous. He brought the biscuit up and took a bite, but his free hand kept clenching and unclenching, his thumb working its way across his knuckles each time he made a fist.

"How is that possible?" Mary said.

His hand stopped moving and he looked at her. "Bit rude, aren't we, Mary?"

"Sorry, I don't mean--I mean, look at you." She waved her hands up and down, encompassing his entire body and appearance. "You must have had opportunities."

"I didn't say I didn't have opportunities. Though not as many as you might think. When I was younger--in school, at uni--I was just an awkward skinny kid with big feet and a big mouth. By the time I grew into myself, I had decided I wasn't really interested in most of the _opportunities._ But even now--" He gestured with his own hand from his head down toward his feet. "Good tailoring and an expensive haircut, that's all. I'm not really what most people think of as attractive."

Mary shook her head. "You're selling yourself short."

"No, he's not." They both looked at me. "I don't--I'm not trying to insult you, Sherlock. But I've seen it--yeah, people like what they see, but then he usually just opens his mouth and they've had enough."

Sherlock snorted a laugh. "Yes, yes, you're exactly right. But you do realize that it's usually intentional on my part. I don't want random people lusting after me. What would be the point? Sex for the sake of sex? No, thank you."

"Erm, okay," I said. "Right now, then. What we're planning on doing--this is something different--not sex for its own sake?"

"I was under the impression that this would be a deepening of a relationship amongst three people who already love each other dearly."

"Oh, God, Sherlock." Mary reached up and squeezed my hand where it rested on her shoulder.

"What? Am I mistaken? I'm sorry, I--" He looked back and forth between Mary and me, panic spreading across that chiseled face of his.

"No, no," I said. "You're exactly right. You're just making Mary hot." And she wasn't the only one. "Let's move this down the hall, okay?" I stood and moved toward our bedroom, Mary right behind me. After a moment I heard Sherlock following.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I half-expected him to refuse, or to make some sarcastic comment, but he just did what she told him. The pants ended up around his left ankle and he lifted his foot and let Mary pull them off completely. Compliant Sherlock: this was new._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, it's a 5000 word sex scene.

Mary settled herself on the edge of our bed, then reached up and took my hand to guide me down next to her. Sherlock stood a little distance away, just inside the bedroom door.

"What--what exactly are we going to do?" Sherlock does not tend to beat around the bush.

Mary smiled up at him. "I know we're all a little nervous, not just you. We haven't exactly done this before, either, not like this. I thought this first time, you could just watch me and John. If that's all right?" She looked at him and then at me. We both nodded.

"Okay, then," she said, and slipped her shoes off. Her toenails were painted a pale pink; not too unusual, but I knew she didn't usually bother with varnish except in the summer. Had they been painted yesterday? I couldn't remember.

"John?" I looked up at her face. "Just relax," she said, and leaned in to give me a long, slow, deep kiss. A good chunk of the tension that had settled in my shoulders and neck melted away, but when she broke the kiss off I was still really nervous. Though if Sherlock was just watching, that might not be too much. Not too scary. Because yeah, I was a little scared. But having him watch us--that wasn't much different from videotaping ourselves, and we'd done that before. Though afterward Mary never wanted to watch it and I think she ended up recording over the video a couple months ago when the baby started to crawl.

Mary stood up and motioned to the armchair next to our bed. Sherlock nodded and crossed the room to sit. 

"Take off your shirt and jacket, Sherlock," she said.

He raised an eyebrow. "Thought I was just watching."

"Yes, but if I'm going to get undressed then so are you. John?"

"Hmm, what? Yes, of course." I hurriedly unbuttoned my shirt and tossed it on the bed, then pulled off my vest as well. "Your turn." I smiled at Sherlock, hoping to put him at ease, even though my own pulse was racing.

He nodded and shrugged out of his jacket, then unfastened his cuffs before more slowly undoing his shirt buttons. The purple shirt. Of course he was wearing the purple shirt. 

"Take it off. Go on, you're not shy." 

"You mean I wasn't," he said, his voice even deeper and a little shakier than usual. He let the shirt fall open. 

Next to me, Mary inhaled sharply.

We'd both seen him in hospital after he'd been shot, of course, though the bullet hole then had been covered by a smallish square of gauze. But neither of us had seen him immediately after he went back to the hospital, after he'd again almost died--almost killed himself by sneaking out of his hospital bed and running all over the city, stopping along the way to help tear apart my marriage and my faith in Mary before finally collapsing back in the Baker Street flat. I'd started visiting him a few weeks later, when I'd finally pulled myself together enough to talk to him again. He was in hospital for a long time, but he'd always been wearing a hospital gown or, later, his own pyjamas.

"Yes. They had to open me up quite a bit to fix everything," he said, long fingers tracing a line along the shiny pink scar that trailed from the bullet hole high on the right side of his chest down to well below his sternum. The surgeon had clearly done a professional job and it looked like it had healed cleanly, but it was still jarring to see it, over a year later. And I couldn't really imagine what Mary was thinking.

"Sherlock." She brought her hands to her mouth and sat back down heavily on the bed next to me. "I--"

"Don't." He held up his hand. "I know. You've said it enough. It's over with, done, forgiven." He settled back into the chair, his shirt still on his shoulders but his chest fully exposed now. He folded his hands at his waist and nodded at Mary. "Your turn, I believe." His blue eyes looked eager enough that I began to reconsider my assumption that he'd never been interested in women.

Mary gave him a little shy smile and then looked at me, confirming. I nodded. 

She undid all of the buttons on her blouse and then turned to me, sliding one leg up underneath herself to sit sideways on the bed. She flicked her eyes quickly over to Sherlock, then returned her focus to me. "Undress me," she whispered.

I undressed her. While Sherlock watched. I went slowly, making sure at each step that this was still what she wanted. First the blouse, pushing it gently off her shoulders. She let out a little sigh as it fell, and slid closer to me, settling her hands palms up in her lap. I let my fingers glide over her hands, then up her arms, just enough pressure to make her shiver. 

I stopped when I reached her shoulders and slipped a finger under each strap of her bra, a pale lacy thing that she hadn't worn in more than a year. She was still nursing, just once a day now, at bedtime, to soothe the baby to sleep. Two hours ago her breasts had been hard, full of milk; now they were supple and perfect and straining slightly at the sides of the bra's cups. I reached behind her and unhooked the clasp and she shifted her body so the straps slid off. 

I sat back a little and exhaled. So. Okay. Now we were all half-naked. Mary was looking at me, her lips slightly parted; if she was at all uncomfortable, I couldn't tell. Sherlock . . . . I glanced over at him. Yes, he was watching us, head tilted a little, as if we were a puzzle, one that seemed like it might be interesting, but he hadn't decided for sure yet. Or I don't know, maybe he was thinking about whatever experiment he'd left at home in the refrigerator. How was I ever supposed to know what was going on in his head?

"Don't lose your nerve now," Mary said, to me, I guess, and she wrapped her arms around me, hands coming up to the back of my head, and then we were kissing again, she was biting at my lip and pulling and growling a little and my eyes flicked over to Sherlock and we were definitely more interesting to him now. 

Mary pulled away from me and gave me a little smirk, like she knew I kept looking over at Sherlock and that was amusing and she wasn't going to stop me except maybe she was going to distract me by--

Yes, that was distracting. She dropped the skirt onto the floor and laid back on the bed in front of me and those were definitely new panties and they didn't actually match the bra but they were black and silky and tiny really and what was even the point, not that I was complaining but--okay, maybe that was the point. 

Mary spread her legs to either side of me, her hands resting on her stomach, just above the line of the panties. She slid two fingers from each hand just under the edge of the fabric, and now I was completely hard, completely ready, completely committed to fucking my wife on our bed while Sherlock Holmes watched.

He was watching. He was looking at Mary, studying her as she lay spread before me on the bed, taking in the naked breasts with their dark nipples exposed, the little bit of leftover baby weight around her middle that mostly disappeared now that she was on her back, the panties that were too small to cover all of the hair between her legs, the freshly-shaved smoothness of her thighs and calves. I watched him looking at her, and maybe I was supposed to feel something different, maybe I wasn't supposed to want another man to look at my wife that way, to examine her while she was naked and then slowly grin at what he saw, but all I felt was more arousal, more heat and more urgency. 

I slipped off the bed for a moment and pulled off my pants, let them drop to the floor. I pinched my eyes shut for a moment, knowing Sherlock was probably looking at me now. Let him. Did he like what he saw? I didn't turn to him to find out; he was just a few feet away from where I stood, but Mary held out her hands and said my name now, and I quickly climbed back onto the bed.

She pulled me on top of her. I buried my face in her neck and reached down with one hand, thinking I would pull off her panties for her. My hand brushed across the front of the thin fabric; they were soaking wet. 

"Mary," I managed to say. "You're--"

"Yeah, I'm ready. Come on, John. Hurry up." She pushed down her panties and grabbed my cock to guide me into her. 

I moaned and slid one arm under her to pull her as close as I could. I'd never felt her so wet and open so quickly. Which was good, because I was definitely not going to last long right then. I started to thrust and she gasped and then bit lightly at my shoulder. 

Sherlock made a small noise and we both turned to him. I smiled as I realized what the problem was and Mary told him, "It's okay. Go ahead."

He kicked off his shoes and socks, then hesitated. "Ah, are you sure?" he asked, but he was already unzipping himself and pushing his trousers down before either of us could answer. I'd half-expected silk boxers, but he was wearing black boxer briefs. They weren't even expensive; they were the same brand I wore. Huh. 

Sherlock rested his long, pale fingers over the bulge in his pants and I turned back to Mary. She looked up at me with her dark, wicked eyes and said, very clearly, "You need to finish fucking me right now, John Watson. Sherlock is going to jerk himself off while he watches us, and I am going to come so hard around you neither one of us will be able to walk for a week."

Shit. I lowered my head to kiss the filthy mouth that had started all this. Mary didn't kiss back--she just gasped into my mouth and her shoulders jerked into mine and I could feel her orgasm pulse through her, tightening around my cock and pulling me over the edge with her.

My hips rocked against Mary's a few more times as I came inside her, her body seemingly trying to swallow up every drop of me even as her convulsions did their best to expel my cock from inside her. 

Eventually we both stilled. Mary recovered her ability to speak before I did. "Sorry, didn't know it would be so quick," she said, pushing her hair away from her eyes and then running her hand over my cheek. 

I kissed the palm of her hand. "'S okay." I eased my hips away from hers and dropped my left elbow, draping myself half on her body and half on the bed. "All the anticipation and . . . audience." I waved my hand toward Sherlock; I can't say I had forgotten he was there, but I had definitely been paying more attention to myself and Mary for a bit there.

Mary wiggled out from under me a little and turned on her side toward him. 

"Sherlock, you didn't--" She motioned at him; he was still wearing his briefs, both hands loosely clasped over his obvious erection but not actually doing anything about it.

"No," he said, sounding quite miserable.

"But you must've, I mean you've done it before--masturbated?"

"Of course," he snapped, his usual self for a moment, then, softer, added, "Just not in front of other people."

Mary looked at me and I shrugged, then nodded. Sometimes the two of us can figure out what the other is thinking, too. 

We could've left him on his own to finish, but that really wasn't the point of this whole thing, was it? 

One more glance at me from Mary and it was decided. She slid down off the bed. I still wasn't quite sure which of us Sherlock would've preferred, but I wasn't ready to go to him yet. Mary was. And while a small part of my brain was aware that I should not be so eager to have my wife touch another man, right at that moment there was honestly nothing I wanted to do more than watch her.

Mary knelt on the floor in front of Sherlock. He looked down at her, his face flushed, and shifted his position slightly so that she was between his legs. 

She rested her right hand on his left knee and then ran the fingers of her other hand along the elastic on the leg of his briefs. "Take them off," she said.

I half-expected him to refuse, or to make some sarcastic comment, but he just did what she told him. The pants ended up around his left ankle and he lifted his foot and let Mary pull them off completely. Compliant Sherlock: this was new. 

Mary sat back on her heels for a moment and looked him over. He kept his eyes on her face. I had actually seen Sherlock naked a few times before, but obviously not like this. I could tell he was trying to keep his breathing even, and doing a fairly good job, though that right hand of his was fidgeting again. 

I shifted to the edge of the bed. Mary knelt just a few inches away from me. I sat up and put my feet on the floor right behind her, then slid forward enough that my calves were just brushing against her naked hips.

She started to reach for his cock, then stopped. "Show me how you like it, Sherlock."

He grunted and took hold of himself, his cock thick and dark against his long, thin fingers. He gave himself a few quick strokes, then stopped and looked worriedly over at me, then back at Mary. 

"Close your eyes," I suggested. I should've known he'd have a problem relaxing enough to enjoy himself. 

He did as I said and after a moment resumed stroking himself. Soon his fingers were glistening, but rather than using the natural lubrication he paused to wipe his hand off on his thigh and opened his eyes again.

"Right, Sherlock, stop worrying about it, okay?" Mary ran her fingers over the wet spot he'd just left on his leg. He shuddered at her touch.

"I'm trying," he said, his voice much hoarser than normal. "It's difficult."

I leaned forward and stroked a hand through Mary's hair, which was quite a mess after our time in the bed. Odd that she and I were less self-conscious than Sherlock even though we'd been the ones on display for him.

"Sherlock," I said. "This is one of those things where the more you try, the more difficult it gets. You need to just relax and let it take you."

"John." He looked past Mary to meet my eyes. I could see the arousal and frustration in his face, but also a bit of humor. "How long have you known me?"

"A while."

"How often have you seen me relax and relinquish control?"

"I know," I said. I bent to kiss the top of Mary's head. 

She arched up into my lips, then said to Sherlock. "Let me help." 

She reached out and slid the fingers of both hands along the length of his cock. He shivered and moved his own hands away to rest on his thighs. Mary stroked him a few more times, then paused to look up at him.

"I want to--" She inclined her head toward his groin. "But I need to know, do I need . . . ?"

"I'm clean," he said.

"All right," Mary said, and then she leaned forward and in one smooth movement, took Sherlock's cock in her mouth.

His eyes shot open all the way and he jerked forward in the chair. Mary kept her mouth on him but pushed his torso back so he was again reclining. He slid his hips forward instead and she let him, then reached back to cup his arse with one hand.

"Oh," he said.

I blinked my eyes closed for a second and tried to collect myself. Then I looked down between my own legs. I wasn't exactly hard again, not so soon, but I was exceedingly warm. Mary was sucking Sherlock's cock and I--oh my God, it was the hottest thing I'd ever seen. Hottest thing I'd ever even thought about. 

I put my hands on her shoulders and nearly fell off the edge of the bed in an attempt to be as close to the two of them as I could. My feet brushed against Sherlock's. He stretched his legs out so our ankles were touching. I may have moaned a little.

I watched the back of Mary's head as she worked her mouth up and down Sherlock. I could almost feel her tongue on me. Was he enjoying it as much as I did when she sucked me? I stole a glance up at his face. Yes, he was. I think he may have actually figured out how to relax. 

It wasn't long, probably not even a minute, before Sherlock reached out and put his hand on Mary's cheek. She stopped moving and looked up at him. His glance flicked briefly to me, then back to her. She nodded. I froze. Did that mean--?

Mary settled back against my legs, slowly releasing Sherlock's length from her mouth. She leaned on his knees to pull herself up to standing, then stepped to the side. Without turning around she put her hand back and found my shoulder, pulling me forward gently.

"Hang on," I said.

"John," they both said, Mary's voice somewhat chiding, Sherlock's more desperate.

"If you think I'm getting on my knees in front of you, you're insane, Sherlock," I said. "Get up here and lay down on the bed."

Sherlock practically vaulted out of the chair and I scrambled back on the bed to give him room. He flopped back onto the pillows, spread his long legs to either side of me and said in a breathless voice, "It's 'lie down,' not 'lay down,' John."

I huffed out a laugh and then punched him quite hard in the calf. Because I may have been about to give my best friend a blow job while my wife watched, but I was going to do it in the manliest way possible.

Sherlock flinched at the punch and then his hands were in my hair and he was trying to pull me down toward his cock. I shrugged out of his grasp, needing to do this at my pace, not his. Which might have been a bit cruel, given the state he was currently in and his lack of experience in these matters.

I put my hands on his legs and slid them up slowly toward his groin, my thumbs reaching out to caress the soft skin of his inner thighs. When my hands finally reached his pubic hair I paused for a moment to examine him. His cock stood twitching, dark red in the middle of a mass of nearly black hair. It looked exactly like I'd expected it to: a little longer, a little thinner than mine. 

I reached out with my left hand and touched him, feeling how hot and hard he was beneath my fingers. He let out a small whimper. It was so completely unlike any sound I had ever heard him make that I could hardly believe it was him. I looked up and smiled at what I saw. Yes, this was Sherlock here, stretched out naked in my bed, six feet of pale skin and dark hair and a surprisingly muscular chest. Sherlock who was practically begging me to bend my head to him and finish what he and Mary had started. 

I shifted into the best position I could find between his thighs and lowered my head to his cock.

I had never done this to another man, but that didn't mean I didn't know how to do it. At least, I knew what I liked. I started at the base and licked my way up to the head of his cock, and knew as soon as I got there he wouldn't last long. 

I opened my mouth and took him inside. He tasted like sweat and soap and salty pre-come and just a hint of Mary's toothpaste. His hands found my hair again, but he didn't otherwise move, so I sucked his cock deeper. It filled up my mouth but not too much, and I curved my tongue around him. He made more sounds that didn't seem like him, and next to the bed a breathless Mary said my name. I swung my right arm across the bed toward her and she took my hand. I used my left hand to cup Sherlock's balls, and thought about creeping a finger down toward his arse, but didn't. One sensation at a time; he would be overwhelmed enough if this was truly his first time with anyone else.

I licked and sucked for a few short moments and Sherlock's moans became more frantic. When I pulled back just a bit to run my tongue back and forth over his slit, he pulled at my hair and said, "Stop. Please, stop."

I stopped. I didn't want to. I wanted to wrap my lips around him as tight as I could and feel him come in my mouth and then swallow it down, but I stopped. He tugged at my hair again and I released him, peeked up at him while still keeping my face very close to his cock.

His eyes were pinched shut. "I can't, please, John," he said, sounding younger and more vulnerable than I would've believed possible.

"Okay," I told him, wiping at my lips. "It's okay." Though really it wasn't; did he actually expect us to just wind him up and then stop? He wanted to be here, didn't he? Of course he did, and he was clearly enjoying it--it wasn't like he could hide that from us. He was just too much of a control freak to let himself go all the way. 

All right. Enough of this. He was just going to have to bloody well do what I told him for once in his life.

I sat up and squared myself between his legs again. "Sherlock, listen to me. You're going to finish this now, do you understand me?"

"Yes. Yes. Just--give me a minute."

He was barely able to get the words out and for the first time that night my doctor's instincts kicked in. Should he really be that flushed and short of breath? Was he even healthy enough to be having sex, given his drug abuse history and the fact that his heart had stopped twice in the past eighteen months? As much as I was enjoying this, I did not need to watch Sherlock die in front of me again. 

I was about to try to take his pulse when he quirked an eyebrow at me and said, his voice much more steady, "Statistically, John, you're much more likely to have a heart attack than I am."

"I'm only five years older than you."

"Both of my parents are still--"

"Enough!" Mary slid into the bed next to Sherlock and draped her naked body along his. "Shut up, both of you."

She nuzzled her way up his neck toward his ear, and just like that, his eyes closed and he was back to gasping and being incapable of speech. So was I. The sight of her pressed against him like that . . . . I took myself in my hand and began to stroke, pleased to find that I was not in fact too old to do this twice in the space of a half-hour.

I watched Mary. She licked her way around Sherlock's ear, then paused to whisper something to him. He nodded at whatever she said, then reached down with his right hand and took hold of himself again. 

He matched the rhythm of his strokes to mine; I don't know if it was conscious or unconscious on his part. Or maybe I was matching him. I rested my right hand lightly on the top of Mary's thigh and wondered if Sherlock was still going to last longer than me.

Mary lifted her head enough to glance down at what Sherlock and I were both doing. I met her eyes and she gave me the filthiest, happiest, most erotic look ever. Oh my God, I love her so much, and did I mention that she sometimes has the best ideas? Like this one, right now.

I knew she could tell exactly where I was, but I assumed Sherlock was still something of a mystery to her. She took a quick look up at his face, then lowered her head to his ear and whispered again. Then she quickly squirmed down his chest and darted her tongue out to lick at his nipple.

Sherlock's eyes flew open to stare at Mary. She grinned and put her mouth on him again, this time briefly pulling at his nipple with her teeth. His back arched at the touch. I could feel my own nipples perking in response. I opened my mouth a little so I could breathe and kept stroking myself, very fast now. My other hand had slid off Mary's thigh and onto Sherlock's when she shifted positions; I left it there, allowing my nails to scrape over his warm skin just a bit.

Mary bent one more time to Sherlock's chest and he groaned loudly, half sitting up and wrapping his left arm around her as she pulled away. She stayed at his side, threw her own arm around his shoulders and turned to face me, grinning wildly. Sherlock drew both legs up on either side of me and I knew this was it for him. My instinct was to say something encouraging but I didn't dare distract him. 

Instead I just watched as Sherlock shuddered and came all over himself. In my bed as my wife and I watched.

He let go of Mary and fell back against the pillows. Mary pulled her arm from around his shoulders, ran her hands through her hair, and then crawled over Sherlock's shivering body to kiss me. I opened my mouth to her tongue, gave myself a couple more strokes, and then realized at the last moment there was no way for me to avoid hitting both Mary and Sherlock as I spurted all over the bed. 

I waited a couple heartbeats until I was sure I was done, then collapsed sideways against Sherlock's leg. Mary already had tissues in her hand and was wiping her arm and her hair. Luckily for her and Sherlock, the second time around I had a lot less in me than the first. I was still pretty proud that I'd managed it again, though.

"Sorry," I said, waving my hand weakly at both of them. "Sorry, didn't mean to--" I started laughing. I couldn't help it; I was a little afraid of what Sherlock's reaction was going to be--anger? Embarrassment? Disgust?--but the whole situation was just so ridiculous and, and _good._

Mary reached for more tissues and passed them to Sherlock. For a moment I thought he might demand a freshly pressed handkerchief or something, but he just took the tissues from her without a word. Then he smiled at her, and then at me, and then he started laughing, too, and then so did Mary and then we were pretty much all pretty much delirious for a minute or two until finally Mary got control of herself. 

"Stop, stop," she said. "Sherlock, you're really loud. You're going to wake the baby and then neighbors."

"Sorry. I'm sorry." He cough-laughed himself into quietness after a moment. "It was just--it was good."

"Good?" She raised her eyebrows at the word.

"Better than I expected."

"What were you expecting?"

He didn't respond. Instead he looked down at me and said, "I know you're taking my pulse."

"Sorry." I didn't move my fingers from where they rested just inside his thigh.

"No, you're not."

"It's a little high," I told him.

"It's always high," he said. "Fast metabolism. Also, if I die in your bed it's your fault." He pulled his leg up and away from me, almost kicking me in the head in the process. I crawled up the bed and collapsed on the pillow next to him, so he was between me and Mary. He was still wearing his shirt, which was now a rumpled purple mess with someone's semen smeared across one sleeve. I was tempted to pull it off him, but moving again seemed like too much work, and anyway his right arm was touching my shoulder and the shirt was soft.

Mary put her hand on Sherlock's chest, which still looked a little sticky but had been mostly wiped off. 

"Sherlock, there's something you should know." Her tone was serious, enough for a brief flicker of worry to cross Sherlock's face. "You have a couple of white hairs." She looked pointedly down the bed at him. 

There was a moment of shocked silence, and then he laughed. "And it appears you're not a natural blonde, Mary Watson."

She smiled against his arm. "Don't tell John."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading this far! More to come next week. If anyone cares to comment, I would be eternally grateful since I've now gone three chapters and no one has said a word about it to me.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason I'm determined to write this whole story without naming the baby.

I can't say I was too surprised when Sherlock texted me the next morning, asking to meet for coffee. Although it was a little unusual for him to be up and active several hours before noon.

I drove over to the coffee shop, which was about half-way between our house and his, and not any place I'd ever been before. I couldn't help wondering if he'd done someone there a favor or if he was just looking for a neutral meeting place where no one knew us.

Sherlock was sitting in a booth in the back of the shop, sprawled across the bench as if it were his living room sofa, feet hanging off the end. He was using an empty mug to draw circles in a puddle of sugar on the table and he looked like an over-grown five-year-old, but when he saw me he sat up straight and grinned.

"Stuck Mary home with the baby? You could've brought them, you know."

I slid into the booth across from him. "No, they went to church."

"Church?"

"Yes, it's Sunday morning, Sherlock."

"Mary goes to church? With the baby?"

"Um, yes?"

"Why?"

I didn't know what to say to that. "I guess because she believes in God?"

"It's just--Mary. Doesn't seem the type." He ran his finger through the sugar on the table and I resisted the urge to hand him a napkin and tell him to clean it up.

"You know we got married in a church. You were there. Did you delete that?"

"No. I would never delete anything about the two of you. I just thought you got married there because that's where people got married. I didn't think one of you would actually choose it on purpose."

"Okay, I kind of feel like I need to be offended on Mary's behalf right now, Sherlock. Maybe stop."

"Sorry. I'm sorry. I just figured, what with her, ah, past, she wouldn't really be one to worry about, well, God and morality and such."

I pursed my lips. I'd never really put those two aspects of Mary together. Probably because she'd been going to church most Sunday mornings ever since I'd met her, but I hadn't known about her former career until more recently. "Maybe she's trying to repent."

"Hmm. Maybe." He folded his hands together in front of his face and I tried not to laugh because I honestly don't think he realized he looked like he was praying. "Well, I guess there are plenty of religious criminals, the Mafia, groups like that. Not too unusual, just nothing I'd associated with Mary before."

"If you're done comparing my wife to the mob, I'm going to go get a coffee. Want one?"

"Had one already. I'll take some English Breakfast and one of those apple tart things they have on display." 

He didn't even bother reaching for his wallet, but I didn't really care. I just wanted to walk away for a minute so I could clear my head. I'd spent the last year and a half learning to live with my knowledge of Mary's past, and the best way to live with it, I'd found, was to keep her history firmly separated into Before I Knew Her and After We Met. I didn't need Sherlock messing it up by pointing out the connections between the two. So what if some criminals went to church? Mary wasn't a criminal anymore. Except for that time she shot Sherlock. 

I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment as I stood in line to order. Mary shot Sherlock; I'd seen the scar on his chest last night. A thread of panic threatened to strangle me. I pushed it down. Last night I'd also seen Mary sucking Sherlock's nipple hard enough to make him come, which a much better image to remember, as it turned out. I bought myself a coffee and a pastry and got Sherlock his tea and apple tart and returned to sit with him in the booth.

I fully expected it to be awkward. Isn't it always awkward the morning after you and your wife have given your best friend his first blow job after he watched you have sex? It seemed like it should be. But it wasn't; it was just Sherlock drinking over-sugared tea while I waited for my first dose of caffeine to kick in.

He'd obviously invited me out this morning for a reason, though, so as much as I was enjoying the companionable silence, I had to ask, "Something on your mind, Sherlock?"

He raised his eyebrows as he nibbled at his breakfast. "Not really."

"You don't usually want to meet for Sunday breakfast."

He shrugged one shoulder. "Guess I just wanted to see you." His smile looked sincere, almost--nervous? Really? He--

"You were afraid I wouldn't come," I said, knowing I was right. I can deduce things sometimes, too. "You thought I would regret last night." 

He thinned his lips and drew another line in the spilled sugar. "You certainly seemed happy enough when I left last night, but I thought things might look different in the morning," he admitted.

"Nope." I took a sip of my coffee. "I had a good time, full stop. Didn't you?" I knew he did. Well, I knew he'd enjoyed himself last night, though I guess there was always the chance that his convoluted thought processes could've re-interpreted all the data and made him decide it had been a mistake.

"God, yes, John. We should've done that years ago."

I chuckled. "Not sure I would've been ready for that."

"Hmm," he said, tapping a finger against his lips and studying me. "Maybe not," he said. "But I would have been."

"Oh," I said. Wait, what? Did he mean--?

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Oh, please don't start thinking now, John."

I glared at him, because apparently he could see it as my brain attempted to re-evaluate every conversation and interaction that had taken place between the two of us over the last five years. I shook my head and said, "But, Sherlock, all those years we were _living_ together and you never--"

"You aren't gay, John. You made that pretty clear."

"But you are." I wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement.

He shrugged. "Not particularly."

I cocked my head, dumbfounded. Just when I thought I might possibly be able to understand this man . . . . "Not particularly?" 

"Look, John." He turned to face me directly and spread those long fingers out on the table between us. I blinked once, trying not to picture them wrapped around his cock like they had been last night, and then met his eyes. "I am not an especially sexual person."

That was true. At least, that was how he saw himself, I knew. Other people did sometimes gravitate toward his appearance, and he certainly played that up to his advantage when it suited him, but for the most part he seemed to ignore the entire realm of human sexuality, unless it related to a case. I'd never been able to work out if he actively repressed any sexual feelings he might have, as I suspected he did with most of his emotions, or if he just didn't have any of those feelings. It wasn't something that I would have ever been comfortable asking him about, although I guess now was the time.

"So you don't--"

He cut me off, drumming all his fingers once on the table. "I've been attracted to three people in my adult life."

"Three people?"

"Three people. I'm not counting my teenaged years. I've tried to write over most of those memories."

"Okay. So the three people are . . . ?"

"Two women and one man."

I didn't say anything. He could damn well say what he meant for once if he wanted me to know. Though I was absolutely certain I knew who two of the three were.

I was right. "The man is you, John," he said. "Obviously." I just looked down at my own hands clenched around my mug and nodded. 

"One of the women is Irene Adler."

Wow, he must have been telling the truth. He actually said her name. I didn't even think he'd allowed himself to think her name since she . . . disappeared. But again, as soon as he'd said he'd been attracted to women I'd known that she must have been one of them.

All right, so I'd gotten past the awkward admission that Sherlock was attracted to me-- _since when? Did it start when we met? Or recently? Last night?_ Since I wasn't going to ask any of those questions, I said, "Who's the second woman?" 

Oddly, this seemed to make him more uncomfortable than when he'd named me. He pulled his hands back off the table and briefly closed his eyes. When he spoke his voice was soft, a low rumble I had to focus on to hear. "The second woman is Mary."

Coffee sloshed out of my mug, even though it was resting on the table and half-empty. My brain felt sloshy, too. "Mary."

He'd regained his composure. "Yes, John. Mary Watson, formerly Mary Morstan, formerly . . . unknown."

"My wife, Mary."

"Yes, John, your wife. The one who was in bed with the two of us last night? One would think, given that circumstance, this revelation would be neither a surprise nor unwelcome news."

"But I thought . . . ."

"You thought that I wanted you, and just settled for her as part of the package?"

"Well, yeah." _You think you yourself are more attractive than the woman you've married? Not good, John._ Thankfully he didn't say it, but I could still hear it. "I just thought--okay, I really thought you were either gay or completely asexual," I said.

"Please, John. Gay is so--limiting. I would have liked to be asexual, I believe, for most of my life. It seemed it would make things easier, don't you think?"

I shook my head but he wasn't really looking for an answer. He was just working things out in his own head, with me as his sounding board, as usual.

"I suppose the urges were always there, but I was able to suppress them successfully, or at least ignore them. I honestly never even noticed you physically for a good long time, though in retrospect, there may have been . . . stirrings."

I took a careful sip of my coffee and tried to make the mug not shake. Because honestly, what was I supposed to say here? Thanks for not noticing me even though I made you--stir? 

"Then with the woman," Sherlock continued, back to not using her name. "I couldn't exactly ignore her, could I?"

"No, she was a bit too naked on your lap for that," I agreed.

"Yes, well. And you knew how I felt about her. Everyone did. I was so unused to feeling attraction that when it hit me, I didn't know how to hide it.

"But, Mary. I liked her platonically as soon as I met her. When I came back to London after--" He cleared his throat. "I found myself much more emotional than I had ever been before. I was happy for you both. I didn't--I didn't even look at her, really, though, beyond seeing that you loved each other and she was good for you. Until . . . ."

I raised my eyebrows when he didn't continue but knew I didn't really ever need to prod Sherlock once he'd decided to start talking. 

"Until she shot me."

That got me. I pushed the mug away and folded my hands neatly on the table in front of me. It took a couple seconds, but eventually I was able to compose myself enough to say, "You started being attracted to my wife when she _shot_ you?"

"Not the day she shot me, John. Don't be ridiculous. Do you know how much getting shot hurts? Well, of course you do. And then there was quite a bit of emotional turmoil, a sense of betrayal...." He met my glance briefly and at least had the sense to give me a slightly embarrassed smile. "Anyway, it wasn't until at least a week later, that night I left the hospital--I know, I know, not my finest moment, but it all worked out in the end, didn't it?"

"Well, you didn't die, so there's that," I told him.

"Exactly. But when Mary followed me to Leinster Gardens and then back in the flat where she told us--"

"So you're saying the day my wife broke my heart and nearly destroyed what I thought was our life together is the day you fell in love with her."

"I didn't fall in love with her, John. I simply began to find her attractive." He paused, pursing his lips as he looked away for a moment. "I do love her, though, but that's a different feeling."

"Of course it is." I focused on eating the last crumbs of my pastry, trying to work out what I thought and felt. Sherlock had been in our bed last night; why was that less disturbing than hearing he was attracted to Mary? Weren't we quite a bit beyond that? It wasn't like he was going to try to steal her away from me. Was he? No, I was still fairly certain that was not something I needed to worry about.

I shook my head. It might have taken me and Mary sucking him off to get him to share, but I now knew more than presumably anyone else did about Sherlock Holmes's sexual preferences. Three people in twenty years. Jesus. Because if I wasn't mistaken, he didn't mean only three people that he'd fallen in love with or had a crush on. He honestly had not looked at any other person in all those years and thought, "cute smile" or walked behind a girl--or a guy--in tight pants and admired the view. I'd done that twice on the way over here this morning. And I knew it wasn't just me--I'm pretty sure every show that Mary watches on telly has at least one bloke she likes to look at. Usually someone much younger, taller and better-looking than me, but that was all right. I knew it was a perfectly normal human reaction to look at other perfectly normal humans and like what you saw. The fact that Sherlock apparently didn't do that except in a very few instances . . . well, I really didn't know what to make of that. Should I be flattered? 

I was in pretty good company, after all. Was there any sort of common theme between us? Irene Adler and Mary after she shot him. Hmmm.

"You like people who've hurt you," I said. I didn't fit the pattern, but maybe that was just what he liked in women. Maybe he liked men who made him tea and did the shopping.

"No. I like people who are interesting. There just aren't that many of them out there." He drank some more of his tea and I thought that the conversation was over, but a moment later his expressive face and hands went very still and he said, "Oh. Janine."

"Janine?"

"Yes." 

"Janine who you fake dated?"

"Yes, but not while we were 'dating,' of course."

I leaned back in the booth and nodded, like that made perfect sense. The scary thing was, it did make sense, because this was Sherlock I was talking to.

"Not until she came to me in the hospital, after I'd been shot. She'd made up all these graphic, sexual stories about our relationship and sold them to the papers."

"But it wasn't the graphic stories that turned you on to her, was it?"

"Of course not."

"It was that she was interesting now that she'd done that."

He looked at me and I could see something in those eyes that was begging me to tell him I understood, that other people acted like this. Well, I guess to be honest it wasn't the weirdest thing I'd ever learned about Sherlock. And he certainly wasn't going to be attracted to people he found boring. As soon as that word entered my mind I had to firmly close the door on any thoughts about what Sherlock may have actually thought about Moriarty. Because Moriarty was many things, but boring was not one of them.

"So, ah." I tried to think of something to say so he wouldn't figure out that I was thinking about Moriarty. "I, erm, well, since you enjoyed yourself last night, do you think you'll want to do it again sometime?" Crap. Because that would have been a great question to ask him, if only I had thought to ask Mary about it first.

Sherlock just raised his eyebrows at me. "Yes, I would be willing, but don't you think you should talk to Mary about it first?"

"How--?"

He laughed. "You were both practically asleep when I left; I doubt you did anything more than cuddle up together and drift off after that. And what are the chances that you had time for a grown-up conversation this morning--the baby was up by six, wasn't she?"

I nodded, because of course he was right. "She'll want to, I think. I know she had a good time." 

"And it was her idea, after all," he added.

I squinted at him, trying to remember if either of us had told him that.

"Oh, come on, John. It's not the sort of thing you would ever think of on your own. You're much too moral for that."

"Right," I replied. "Thanks. Of course it was my completely immoral wife's idea." Sherlock was still a dickhead when he wanted to be.

"Oh, I don't know," he said, leaning back and stretching out across the booth again. "She's not completely immoral, is she?"

I raised my eyebrows, questioning.

"Well, she did take the baby to church this morning."

Yes, a complete dickhead. I laughed, though, and wouldn't have traded him for anything.

# # #

As it turned out, Mary and I hardly had two minutes alone together for the rest of the day, between feeding the baby and ourselves and buying groceries and Mary's yoga class and the nap I took that lasted longer than the baby's did.

Eventually Mary got the baby settled for the night while I did the washing up. By the time I finished Mary had stepped into the shower. 

"Hello, love. You joining me?" she asked when I opened the bathroom door.

"I can. Let me grab some clean clothes."

"Leave the door open so we can hear if she cries."

I came back with some clean underwear and pyjama bottoms and twitched the shower curtain aside to step in with her.

I watched her wash her hair while I soaped up and waited for space to rinse myself. When she was done with her hair we switched places so I could stand under the water.

"So, how's Sherlock?" She ran her fingers through her hair to untangle it and watched me as I washed.

"Oh, you know. The usual. Overly observant. Somewhat offensive. Kind of nervous and shy. Surprisingly honest and revealing."

She smirked. "Well, those first two sound like him. Guess we made an impression last night, then?"

"Mm-hmm. He's, er, interested in visiting again sometime, if you want him to."

"Hmmm." Mary stepped toward me in the small tub, her arms coming up to circle my waist. I leaned forward a bit so the water wouldn't hit her in the face. "I think that would be okay with me. How about you?" 

I ducked my head just a bit to meet her lips. She kissed me for a moment and then pulled away enough to ask, "Is that a yes?"

I growled an affirmative and tugged her back against me again. I'd certainly enjoyed being with her and Sherlock last night and I was willing to try it again, but I wasn't going to give up time alone with Mary. 

The thing about Mary is that she's just the right height for shower sex. Or any type of standing-up sex, really. You'd be surprised at how often that comes in handy.

Later on, after we'd run out of hot water and finished up in bed together, I told Mary some of what Sherlock had said to me that morning.

"Do you think it's true?" she asked. "He really hasn't been attracted to anyone else his whole life?" She had my hand in hers and was fiddling with my wedding band, twisting it around and around but not trying to pull it off.

"I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't be able to tell if he was lying, but, well, he did seem pretty virginal last night, don't you think?"

"Maybe he deleted it. Could he do that, do you think? Make himself forget he liked someone, or even that he had sex before?"

I shrugged. I didn't know why anyone would want to do that, but maybe he could.

"Well, he didn't forget about you, that's for sure," she said. "You must've known how he felt."

I shrugged again and pulled my hand away so I could roll onto my side and face her. "Every now and then I'd suspect, maybe, but most of the time, not really. He's very good at hiding what he's thinking."

"And you never--"

"No, honestly, Mary, I was never attracted to him." I laughed a little. "I was actually a little jealous of him--I wished I could be that tall and thin but still so strong. I could look at him and see that he looked good, but it didn't make me want him."

"But?" Mary prompted, because she knew I wasn't quite telling the whole story, of course she did.

"But." I sighed and rubbed my hand over my face. I needed a shave. "I really wasn't attracted to him but I knew from almost the very beginning that if he ever asked me to have sex I would have said yes."

"Wha--John!" Mary rolled off her pillow and grabbed me by the arm. "You--really? Really? Why, if you weren't attracted--?"

"Because I love him, Mary. I've always loved him, you know that."

"And you would do whatever he asked to make him happy," she said. 

I nodded, embarrassed but into this whole thing far too deeply to not admit the truth.

Mary let go of my arm and settled herself on her back, arms beneath her head, looking up at the ceiling. At least someone was enjoying this conversation.

"You would've liked it, you know," she said. "Even though you really don't go for men. If you'd had sex with Sherlock because he asked you to, you would've liked it."

"Well, yeah, I guess we pretty much proved that last night." It made sense, honestly. The human body is basically designed to find pleasure in all sorts of different activities. Just because I like to look at women more than men doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy being stimulated in a variety of different ways. Especially by someone I cared about. Sherlock. Yeah, I would've liked it.

I wiggled closer to Mary and gathered her up as close to me as I could, thankful beyond words that Sherlock had never asked. Because then I might not have ended up with Mary, and that would not have been all right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading this far! Next chapter will have on-screen sex again, I promise!


	5. Chapter 5

On Thursday I had the evening shift and didn't get home until almost nine. Mary had taken the car when she left work at four so she could pick up the baby, which meant I had to take the Tube and then walk six blocks home. There was a cab just pulling up to our house when I arrived. Sherlock stepped out of it with a swirl of his coat and scarf and greeted me with a nod.

"What--what are you doing here?"

He lifted up the greasy paper bag in his hand. "Dinner."

"How did you know I'd be getting home right now?" I asked, feeling stupid because of course he would know my schedule, but his answer surprised me.

"Mary texted me and said she'd eaten all the leftover chicken, so I should bring you Italian."

"Oh, that does sound good," I admitted. "Well, come on in, then."

He'd brought ravioli with a spicy marinara sauce and an antipasto salad that alone would have been enough to feed us all. I ate and Sherlock ate a little, too, and Mary just stood by the kitchen counter, grinning at both of us, while Sherlock told us about how Lestrade had dragged him out to a crime scene of a reported shooting at a daycare center. There was a hole in one of the windows that certainly looked like a bullet hole, but no sign of a bullet. Sherlock had finally discovered a four-year-old playing with a small, metallic rock, and it was actually the boy who'd deduced that it was a tiny piece of a meteorite that had fallen through the atmosphere and broken the window. Sherlock wanted to keep the strange rock, but Lestrade let the boy keep it, saying that Sherlock never would've solved the case because he didn't ever bother to think about the rest of the solar system.

Mary and I both laughed and I looked at Sherlock, lounging at our kitchen table, half-empty glass of wine in his hand, smiling at the two of us, and I was struck by a thought.

"Sherlock, is this a date?"

He spluttered into his glass. "God, no. I hope your dates are better than this. Mary, you do take him on better dates than this, right?"

"Well, yes, but it's been a while."

"How long?"

"Hmm?"

"How long has it been since the two of you have been on a date?"

"You mean out? Together? Alone?" I looked at Mary. "Well, definitely before the baby."

"And then I was hugely pregnant and we didn't go out," Mary added. "And before that, well, there was the six months where John wasn't speaking to me." She sneaked a sidelong glance at me and I pursed my lips and didn't contradict her. Sherlock tactfully ignored it. "So it's definitely been . . . before we got married, at least."

"There was the honeymoon," I pointed out. 

"You mean your sex holiday," Sherlock said.

"Yes, thank you, we've all read the blog," I told him.

Sherlock drummed his fingers on the table and looked from me to Mary. "Saturday night," he announced. "You're going out to dinner this Saturday night."

"Sounds nice, but the baby's not very good at restaurants," Mary said. "More than ten minutes and she wants to crawl around."

"That's why you'll leave her with me." Sherlock leaned back in his chair, looking very pleased with himself.

Mary and I looked at each other. "Uh," she said.

"No way," I said.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I can be responsible when I have to. I kept you alive for several years, John."

I laughed out loud. "Well, you didn't outright kill me, at least."

Sherlock steepled his fingers at his chin. "You can bring her to Baker Street. I'll have Mrs. Hudson as back-up."

"Even if we trusted you with her--I mean, I know you wouldn't harm her on purpose, but still--your flat is not exactly baby-proof."

Mary rubbed at her chin and said, "If we dropped her off around 6, he could just give her a bath and a bottle and then put her to bed. The flat wouldn't need to be very baby-proof, if we brought the travel cot over."

"Really?" I mean, okay, it actually sounded like not that bad of an idea, but Sherlock baby-sitting?

"She likes me, John, and I can work on her pronunciation of 'Uncle Sherlock'."

"She does like to pull your hair," I admitted. "Though I doubt she'll say 'Sherlock' before 'Dada'."

"You just give me a chance, John. I'll have her speaking proper English before she's a year." He sat forward in the chair again, leaning his elbows on the table. "So, it's a date. For the two of you, at least. But right now, I believe it's the three of us?"

I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. "I knew it. You wouldn't bring me dinner just to be nice."

"He brought you dinner because I asked him to," Mary said. She reached for my hand and I gave it to her, let her pull me to my feet. "Now come on, both of you." Sherlock stood obediently. "I realized there was some stuff we should've done last time that we didn't."

# # # 

Mary sat cross-legged on the edge of the bed. "No, stop there," she said to me and Sherlock as we approached. We both stopped. I know she and I had agreed we would do this again, but maybe I should have asked her about her plans a bit more. Because the look she had in her eyes was kind of making me nervous. She put her hands on her knees and grinned like a five-year-old who'd just gotten a pony for her birthday. 

"Okay, turn around and face each other." I stared at Mary, trying to figure out from her expression if this was going where I thought it was going, and then I turned around. So did Sherlock. He rocked up onto the balls of his feet for a moment and smirked.

"Is she always this demanding in the bedroom, John?" he asked.

I raised my eyebrows. "Let's just say she tends to know what she wants."

"And you tend to give it to her."

"Well, yes."

"Okay," he said, and leaned down and kissed me.

The strangest thing was his height. I'd kissed people--women--who were taller than me before, but never more than a couple inches. Sherlock had a good five inches on me, so he bent his neck and I tilted my head back and we just managed to meet in the middle. 

His lips were dry but I opened my mouth almost immediately and he did the same. I knew he'd kissed people before--I'd seen him kiss Janine, at least--but he followed my lead. A little tongue, a suck on the lip, not too much but definitely a good start. He tasted like the vinaigrette from the salad he'd just eaten.

On the bed next to us, Mary sighed. "Beautiful," she breathed.

I cut my eyes over to look at her and smiled against Sherlock's mouth. She'd unbuttoned her jeans and slid a hand down the front of them.

"Keep going," she told us. 

I stepped in closer so my body was pressed against his and slid my arms around him, my hands coming to rest on his back just below his shoulders. He'd left his jacket in the kitchen and the weave of his shirt was smooth against my skin.

For a moment I worried that it was too much contact, and thought he would break off the kiss, try to step away, but either he'd learned his lesson about listening to Mary or he liked this as much as I did. He brought his hands up to my head and twined them into my hair. 

Kissing Sherlock. It was certainly less than I'd done with him last time, but it felt like more. Maybe because we were starting with it, instead of just touching each other when we were already aroused past the point of no return.

I opened my mouth a little wider for him, but he still seemed timid, just brushing his tongue gently against mine. Which was fine, but the rest of his body was definitely sending a stronger message. Pressed as close as we were, I could feel the beginnings of his erection and I knew he could feel mine.

I decided to force the issue. All right, maybe it was less of a decision and more of an urge I couldn't resist. I slid my hands up to the back of his head and pushed my tongue into his mouth as far as I could. 

I felt him gasp slightly, a huff of air into my mouth, and then his tongue was sliding around mine, fast and greedy and insistent. I pushed back, filling his mouth, thrusting my tongue over his and past all his teeth. And I realized there was another difference between kissing Sherlock and kissing any woman I'd ever been with before. His mouth was bigger, quite a bit bigger, really. Which didn't make a whole lot of difference to my tongue, but--.

Sherlock pulled back from the kiss and looked at me. Oh, God, he was deducing me. I closed my eyes for a moment and opened them in time to see him half-grin and half-smirk. "All right," he said, and dropped to his knees in front of me.

I froze, not sure what I wanted to do. No, I knew what I wanted to do. I just wasn't sure if I should. I looked over at Mary. She'd stripped out of her jeans and unbuttoned her blouse but wasn't touching herself at the moment. Instead she was sitting up against the pillows, hands clenched in the fold of the bedspread. She nodded at me. "If you want to, John. Please."

Right. I tilted my hips toward Sherlock. He took the hint and reached out to undo my belt and flies. I pushed my trousers down below my hips. Sherlock hesitated for a moment, then gently tugged down my pants. I exhaled as the room's cool air hit my skin. 

He didn't look up at me, which was fine, because I wasn't sure what I would see in his face or what he would see in mine. He drew the fingers of one hand along the line of hair that ran down from my navel and I shivered and watched my cock get harder. 

Sherlock opened his mouth. I could feel the warmth of his breath against me, his lips inches away. I took an involuntary step forward and from the corner of my eye saw Mary's underwear drop onto the floor. 

He bent forward and gave me an experimental lick, then said, casually, "I've been thinking about doing this for the past few days."

Oh. My body tried to rock itself forward into him, but I held back. It would be rude to just thrust into him; I needed to make sure he was ready. He didn't make me wait. He grabbed my hips and pulled me closer and then his mouth was around my cock. He took me in all the way, just for a brief moment; he coughed a bit but didn't choke as his curls brushed against my stomach and then he backed off, glancing up through his lashes at my face. I smiled and let my eyes fall mostly shut. "Good," I said.

Sherlock made a deep humming noise in reply and I shuddered and put my hands on his shoulders to steady myself. He bobbed his head slowly back and forth, tongue and lips pressing and sliding together along my cock. He was wetter and messier than Mary when she did this; his mouth was definitely bigger but her technique was more refined. But he was learning--quickly. Of course he was; he was probably analyzing every sigh and shudder that escaped me and adjusting his approach accordingly. And Mary--knowing she was watching made it ten times more erotic. I opened my eyes to watch her lightly fingering herself. She saw me watching and smiled and rubbed herself more quickly, tight little circles just over her clit.

"Oh, God," I said, my fingers tightening on Sherlock's shoulders. "You, the two of you, I can't . . . ."

Mary laughed. "The two of _you_. You should see yourselves. You look perfect together. I want you both."

I groaned. Mary. I wanted her, too, but there was no way I was going to let Sherlock stop what he was doing. I could already feel my climax threatening, my balls growing tighter as he experimented with his tongue.

He looked up at my face again, his pupils enormous, and switched from twirling his tongue around me to sucking, hard, and I couldn't stop myself from thrusting deeper into him. He let me, apparently not bothered at all; I don't know how he figured out how to deep throat so quickly, but he did. Then he reached between my legs with one hand and caressed my scrotum, then back farther, ah, how did he know--. His other hand slid behind me to part my arse cheeks, and I felt his fingers pressing against me, not too hard, not actually trying to enter, just pressing, so much pressure everywhere and I couldn't hold it off anymore, I was going to come. 

"Sherlock." My voice cracked, and I tried to pull away from him but he pressed against me harder and gave one final suck and I was coming, coming in Sherlock's mouth, right down his throat, oh, shit, it felt so good, I was falling against him but he held me upright and gently coaxed out the last of my orgasm with his tongue.

Fuck. Sherlock was still kneeling in front of me and Mary was sitting on the bed, leaning toward us, eyes blown wide. "John," she breathed. I looked at her, a small twinge of guilt blooming. We were married; I wasn't supposed to have sex with someone else, and I certainly shouldn't have enjoyed it so much. But then I saw how she was looking at me, and knew it was okay, knew that she'd enjoyed it almost as much as I had, and soon it would be her turn.

I stepped out of my trousers and pants and somehow crossed the few feet to make it to the bed. Mary moved over to make room for me.

I was still pretty shaky. "Just give me a minute, and I'll--" I waved at Sherlock, knowing he'd take my meaning. My legs weren't really thrilled at the prospect, but I actually felt a little bad at how I'd refused to get on my knees for him the last time, when he'd been so willing to do it for me. It wasn't like I wasn't used to submitting to Sherlock.

Sherlock stumbled to his feet and sat down hard next to me on the edge of the bed. He brought a hand up to rub at the back of his neck and worked his jaw open and closed a couple times. 

"Sherlock," Mary squirmed behind us, sliding up by the pillows so she was next to him. "Do you want a glass of water? It's okay, I know it's drying."

He shook his head. "It's fine." He grinned at her. "It is quite dry, isn't it?"

She laughed, a deep, sexy sound, and curled up against him. "Oh, God, I can't believe you just--" She sat up suddenly. "Kiss me. I want to taste it."

He sat up straighter and said, "There wasn't as much taste as I expected." But he turned toward her, ready to kiss.

"I think I shot past most of your taste buds," I said, and collapsed backward along the foot of the bed. I would've closed my eyes except there was no way I was going to miss Sherlock's and Mary's first kiss.

Mary took the lead, of course, no surprise there; she loved kissing and Sherlock had so far proven willing to do whatever we initiated. Before she leaned up to kiss him, she ran her fingers over his cheeks. I hadn't touched his face when I kissed him, but I knew it was smoother than mine; he could go a couple days without shaving before any stubble started to show. 

Then she put her hands in his hair--she'd been waiting to do that, hadn't she? It was part of her fantasy that started this, after all. They kissed while she ran her hands through his curls, both of them making soft noises against each other. Had I made sounds like that when I kissed him? I hadn't noticed; Sherlock doubtless had paid attention, and cataloged every noise I made.

After a couple of moments Mary switched from playing with Sherlock's hair to rubbing her fingers in circles against his scalp, which he definitely seemed to like, although it caused him to break off the kiss and slide his lips across her face to her ear, which he then proceeded to lick and suck quite thoroughly. I didn't even try to figure out how he knew she liked that.

They were both sitting up; now Mary let herself fall back against the pillows and pulled Sherlock down with her. They continued kissing and fondling but he kept most of his body off hers. I wasn't sure if he didn't want to be on top of her or if he somehow felt it wouldn't be welcome. 

Mary ran her hands down Sherlock's body; he was still fully clothed. She pulled away from his mouth for a moment, breathing hard. "Maybe, we could--?" She leaned past him to meet my eyes and I nodded. Do it, do it, oh, please do it and let me watch.

Mary canted her hips toward Sherlock. "Do you want to?"

In response he slid himself over so his body was pressed atop hers. "Does it feel like I want to?"

Sherlock's voice had dropped even deeper than normal and I was surprised to find a shiver of pleasure running down my spine at the sound of it. 

Mary moved underneath him and moaned softly. "John," she said.

"It's okay, yes, please, do it. I want to watch." While I appreciated that she was making sure I didn't object to the two of them having sex, the fact that we were here at all seemed like it should have been enough indication that I was okay with anything either one of them wanted to do.

"I know. Just, get the--" She waved across the bed, toward my nightstand. 

Oh. Right. I scrambled past them across the bed and yanked open the drawer. There were condoms in there somewhere, there had to be, even if we hardly ever used them. I found the strip of foil packets and tore one off. She was taking birth control pills again, but we'd already proven they weren't exactly one hundred percent reliable, and while I was more than open to having Sherlock in our bed, the idea of Mary having his child was not as appealing. Actually, it was rather terrifying.

"Not even expired," I said. Mary grabbed the condom packet out of my hand. 

"Why are you still dressed?" she asked Sherlock, and pushed at his chest so he had to sit up atop her.

Sherlock rose to his knees and hurriedly shoved his trousers and pants down, not bothering to do anything with his shirt other than ruck it up out of the way as Mary unwrapped the condom and then unrolled it onto him.

"Ahh," he panted.

"All right?" she asked.

"Yes," he hissed, still posed above her, his latex-sheathed cock jutting out over her stomach. "I'm just vocal in this situation. Apparently."

Mary smiled up at him. "Me, too. John can listen to all the sounds we make." She reached up with both hands and skimmed her fingers down his chest, over his silky blue shirt.

"Let me get you--" I rolled away from them and rummaged for the lube in the bedside table. They probably didn't really need it, knowing how wet Mary must be, but it wouldn't hurt.

Mary took the tube from me and squeezed some onto her right hand. Sherlock arched his back at her touch, shivering as she coated the condom with the thick lubricant.

She tossed the tube aside and grabbed him by his shirt collars. "Get back down here," she told him, pulling him into a rough kiss.

Sherlock grunted into her mouth and shifted himself so their hips were aligned. He was a little too tall to line up with her as well as I could and keep kissing, but he managed to figure it out. 

Mary ran her hands through his curls a few times--she really did like his hair--then brought her left hand down to his cock. Sherlock lifted his hips up a little and let her guide him between her legs.

"Yep, right there," she said, sliding both arms around his lower back as they began to rut slowly against each other.

I stretched out on my side next to them to watch. It wasn't like watching porn. Yeah, watching a video of two strangers gets me hard sometimes, but this was a completely different experience. Sherlock and Mary were fucking each other, not more than two feet away from me. If I wanted to I could reach out and touch them. Either of them. Both of them.

I extended my arm just enough to let my fingers brush Mary's hip. She cut her eyes over to me, both questioning and aroused. I felt a complex swirl of emotions surge through me and I had to close my eyes for a moment.

I'd had girlfriends cheat on me before; one of them I'd caught in bed with another med student we both knew. I remembered the jealousy, anger and betrayal I'd felt at the time. I didn't know how this could be so different, so completely opposite, but it was. Seeing Mary spread out beneath Sherlock just made me feel closer to her, like there was something new we both shared. Maybe that just showed how messed up I was, but I didn't care. I could see by the way she was looking at me that she felt the same way. And Sherlock--well, I didn't really know what he was feeling emotionally, but physically, he was doing all right.

They were keeping it slow; I'm not sure how anyone could be so patient their first time, so I assumed Mary was setting the pace. She was her usual verbal self, not sharing any deep, dark fantasies with him, not yet, at least, but keeping up a fairly regular commentary on what they were doing and how much she was enjoying it.

"Keep going, keep going." She rocked her hips beneath him. "Just like that, yeah--ow!" 

Sherlock recoiled at her exclamation but Mary just tossed her head, shoving her hair around on the pillow. "No, it's okay, you just leaned on my hair." She laughed. "Get right back where you were. That was perfect."

Sherlock rumbled something about Mary's hair and lowered his face to hers to resume kissing. After a moment he started pumping his hips again and Mary groaned against his mouth. 

She turned her face away from his. "Sherlock, your mouth, could you?" She arched her back so her breasts rose, and Sherlock bent down to lick at a nipple. Again, I definitely had the height advantage when fitting together with Mary, but he was flexible enough to keep her satisfied. 

She writhed beneath his tongue and he sped up his movements against her. They both seemed to be getting a little less rhythmic, more frantic, and I felt my breathing get faster in response. Good lord, the sight of his red lips against the curve of her pale, plump skin. I understood what she'd felt when she'd been watching us a few minutes ago. I inched closer to them, close enough to feel the heat baking off their sweaty bodies.

The first night he was with us Sherlock must have been making an effort to be quiet; now he'd apparently lost that inhibition. Probably because with every thrust he made into Mary she let out another moan or grunt; she'd pretty much abandoned words by this point. Sherlock followed suit, his vocalizations deep enough that I could feel them reverberating where my hand was still grazing Mary's side. Shit. This was a whole level of sexiness that I hadn't even known existed: sound-based arousal. I splayed my hand out along Mary's ribcage; every time Sherlock lunged forward my fingers brushed his torso.

Sherlock was trembling now. I knew the signs; he was trying to hold off as long as possible, but he couldn't do it for much longer. I stretched out to nose against Mary's ear and whispered her name, tilting my head just a bit toward Sherlock.

"I know," she said. "I know. John." Then, "Sherlock."

He lifted his head away from her breast to look at her. She met his eyes and I saw a slight tightening of the muscles around her mouth which I was fairly certain she replicated elsewhere. Yes. Sherlock let out a long, almost painful sounding sigh. He dropped his weight onto his arms along either side of Mary even as his chest arched away from her and she wrapped her legs around his arse, shoving herself against him as she eased him through his orgasm.

A few moments later he rested his head against her shoulder, his hair almost black with sweat. "You . . . you," he said, which was probably more than I'd been able to say after my first time.

Mary brought a hand up to push his tangled curls away from his forehead. "It's okay. I'm getting close. You can finish me another way, if you'd like." 

"I . . . I--" He paused to take a deep breath and visibly brought himself back under some level of control. "All right." He rolled to his right, away from me, one hand reaching down to slip off the filled condom before it could spill. 

"Bin's right next to the bed," Mary said. Sherlock dropped it in and then arranged himself along Mary's side, much as she had done for him the other night. He drew his fingers once across the puff of her pubic hair, said, "I'm not left-handed," and then crawled down the bed to bury his face between her legs.

"Oh, God!" Mary's whole body flinched at the contact; her hands curled into fists at her sides.

Sherlock lifted his head. "No?"

"Yes!" she replied. "Are you insane? Yes." She spread her legs a bit farther apart and pushed him back down. "John, show him how."

"Sorry, what?" 

Mary tilted her head and stared at me like I'd suddenly gone a bit slow. She waved one hand vaguely toward Sherlock and her cunt.

"Right. I'll just--" I squirmed down the bed a bit so my head was level with Mary's crotch, then pulled a pillow down with me to prop under my head. If I actually started to _show_ him what to do I wouldn't be able to stop, but I could certainly give him some pointers. "Tongue. Use your tongue."

"I think I can figure it out," he said with a huff. 

I reached out and caught his left hand in mine, ran my thumb slowly along his index and middle fingers. "You're not left-handed, so just take these two fingers and let them sit in her. You don't need to move them, just fill her up a bit."

My voice might not be as deep as his, but the right words can still be pretty erotic, I've found. 

Sherlock looked at me, eyes dark, and exhaled loudly. "O-okay." He turned back to Mary and did as I suggested. She writhed against his hand in appreciation.

Sherlock glanced over at me, acknowledging that my guidance was useful. "Tongue," I repeated. "Tongue. Clit."

"Mmmm," he rumbled, and bent his head to Mary again.

She took over from there, directing him as to the exact position, motion and speed to use. And she got to lace her fingers through his hair. I watched his tongue flick over her and then grind against her in tiny circles while she called out both of our names and bucked up against his jaw as she came.

Once Mary had stilled, Sherlock and I both crawled back up to lie on the pillows on either side of her. After a few minutes of silence where I thought I might be falling asleep, Sherlock turned onto his side and asked, "Does everyone think I'm gay?"

"I'm sorry?" Mary slid up a little on the pillows so she could look at him properly.

"You were surprised that I wanted to do any more than kiss you, though I'd clearly shown a willingness to climax in your presence."

Mary twisted her mouth a little; I could tell she was trying to decide what to say without offending him. "You just tend to be a little flamboyant," she finally said. "I think it's your clothes. Also, you look at my husband like you want to have sex with him."

I ignored that, and so did he. "My voice is very deep," he said. "I don't know any gay man who has a voice as deep as mine."

"Is that a thing?" I asked, wondering if there were some biological connection.

"I don't know," Mary said. "But he looks at you like he wants to have sex with you."

Sherlock glanced over at me. "John wants to have sex with me, too. Actual, penetrative sex."

I rubbed my face with both hands. "Not tonight," I said.

"Next time," Sherlock said. 

I nodded in agreement, shivers of anticipation and fear running down my spine.

"But no one thinks he's gay," he continued.

"Actually, people used to think I was gay _all the time,_ because of you. I stopped bothering to correct them. Why does it bother you now? You never used to say anything when people thought we were a couple."

"It doesn't bother me," he said. "I'm just curious. I'm curious about a lot of things."

Yes, that pretty much defined Sherlock. 

"For example, the differences between the two of you," he said, raising himself on one elbow so he could see us both as he began to expound. "For one thing, you taste very, very different. I guess that shouldn't have surprised me, but it did."

"Mm, he tastes a lot better, doesn't he, Sherlock?" Mary said. "Don't worry, I won't say you're gay if you agree."

"She just doesn't like the taste of herself," I told him.

"It's nasty."

"She likes me to go down on her," I said. "But then she won't kiss me after I've done it."

"Fine," she said, and planted a kiss on Sherlock's lips. "Ugh, no, still nasty. Sorry." She scrubbed at her mouth with the back of her hand. "I don't know why anyone would ever want to do that."

"Mary's not gay," Sherlock said, letting his head roll back on the pillow.

"No," I said, wistfully, and then giggled, looking across Mary at Sherlock's expression. How did this get to be my life? It was unbelievable, but it was also bloody fantastic.

Mary whacked me lightly in the chest to stop my giggling. "Next time," she said. "You boys can do what you want, of course, but whatever it is, I think it needs to involve all three of us. At once."

Yes. Like I said, Mary has the best ideas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any comments, criticisms, curses are welcome. Or if anyone wants to Brit-pick, feel free. I can handle the pants/trousers thing and then I'm pretty much useless at spotting my innate American-ness.


	6. Chapter 6

Mary and I left the baby with Sherlock and went out to dinner and between the two of us only sent twelve texts checking up on them in the first half-hour. 

After the third time Mary reminded him to check her nappy before putting her down, Sherlock called my phone. "We're about to do her bath, now, John, so I will not be responding to your inane texts immediately. Do not panic." 

"We just got our appetizers, so it'll be a while before we're back," I told him.

"Everything is under control. Relax and have another glass of wine."

"I'm driving," I said. "But I'll try to get Mary drunk. She's more worried than I am."

"She's sent five texts to your seven," Sherlock said. "I know it's hard for you to have a good time without me there, but please try."

I laughed and ended the call and Mary and I did our best to enjoy ourselves. I think we were more nervous about both of us being away from the baby for the first time than the fact that it was Sherlock who was watching her. He might not be most people's first choice for a babysitter, but Mary and I weren't most people and I knew he would do anything to keep us happy. Even change nappies and brush baby teeth after a bottle. Maybe he would even play her a lullaby on his violin.

We stayed long enough for dessert and then I texted Sherlock that we were on our way back. He didn't answer, but he'd probably turned his phone down so it wouldn't make too much noise.

I helped Mary into her coat and she turned to lean against me and whisper, "When we're back at the flat, if the baby's asleep, do you want to--?"

I looked around the restaurant nervously, sure the other diners would know we were talking about our new, unconventional sexual habits. "Maybe," I whispered back. "Let's get out to the car first." I nodded toward the door and then followed her out of the restaurant.

In the car, Mary fiddled with the radio stations for a minute, and then said, "I'd like to, but I know you and Sherlock were kind of planning on, erm, the next step and I don't want to rush you."

I glanced over at her. She had her hair clipped back from her face and a slight flush in her cheeks from the cool fall air. I wanted to pull the car over and kiss her right then, and if Sherlock was waiting back at the flat for us, and Mary was willing tonight, then so was I. 

"You're not rushing me," I said. "I mean, look at what we've already been doing with him, Mary. It's just a different position."

She chuckled. "You're amazing, John, you know that?"

I shook my head. "Not really. Oh, shit." I braked a little too hard as I made a left-hand turn. "I just thought of something."

"What?"

"Sherlock doesn't--I mean he probably doesn't have--maybe we should stop for supplies?"

"Supplies?" She wrinkled her brow. "Oh, right. But he must have something we can use."

I thought briefly of what might pass for lubricant in Sherlock's flat. "No way. He's got way too many noxious chemicals. I'll end up at the A&E."

Mary giggled. "We can stop and grab something."

I stopped at a pharmacy a couple blocks from the flat. I suddenly felt like a teenager, too embarrassed to go in and buy what I needed, so Mary ran inside. She came back a few minutes later with a small white paper bag. 

"I got some mints, too," she said, pulling a small tin out of the bag. "We both had garlic."

I popped a mint and thought that we should've just brought Sherlock with us to dinner, so we could all taste like garlic and no one would care. Then I realized I'd just thought about taking Sherlock on a three-way date and shook my head.

"What's wrong?" Mary asked, putting her hand on my thigh as I shifted the car into traffic and headed toward Baker Street.

"Nothing," I said. "Though we are assuming Sherlock got the baby to sleep with no problems."

"She's a good sleeper. All he had to do was put her down and leave her to fuss for a couple minutes."

"Right. Right." 

"John, it's okay to be nervous."

"It's not what you think. It's just weird, to think about doing stuff like this in my old flat. In Sherlock's bed. It's weird." 

"That's the only thing you're worried about?"

I nodded. "What if Mrs. Hudson hears us?"

"Well, we'll just have to be quiet, won't we?" She smiled and patted my leg. "You should've had another glass of wine. It'll be fine." She tucked the bag with her purchases into her purse.

# # # 

There was no answer when we knocked on the door to the flat itself, which was a little disturbing, but when I opened the unlocked door and we stepped inside I had to smile at what we saw. 

Sherlock was stretched out on his back on the sofa, a position I'd found him in countless times before, except this time my daughter was asleep on his chest.

Next to me, Mary uttered a little squeak of pleasure. I had to admit, it was one of the cuter things I'd ever seen. Something in my chest loosened at the sight.

"Shh." Sherlock opened his eyes to glare at us. "Do not wake her up," he whispered, though if laying on his chest while his voice rumbled like that didn't wake her, then nothing would.

Mary and I stood next to him, my hand resting in the small of Mary's back. "Has she been sleeping on you all this time?"

"A couple hours," he admitted. "The cot contraption was very distressing. She likes it better here."

"Of course she does, Sherlock." Mary lifted the sleeping baby off him and brought her to her left shoulder. The baby rubbed her cheek against Mary and didn't wake up. "Uncle Sherlock is spoiling you." 

I looked down at Sherlock, able to make my own deductions about him for once. "You can't even move right now, can you? You've been holding yourself so still for so long."

"Of course I can move, John. Don't be ridiculous." To prove his point he rolled onto his side, groaning with the motion. "I'm just going to stay here like this for a few minutes." He rolled his shoulders, trying to stretch without admitting that I was right.

Mary laughed. "Do you want a back rub? John's really good at them." She reached out her right hand and grabbed my left. "And then if you want, we could--"

Sherlock groaned again. A painful groan, not a sexy one. "I am tired enough right now that I am going to pretend I don't understand what you are talking about. I have no idea how the two of you can be parents and still have energy for . . . anything else. Though if one of you wanted to grab a couple of ibuprofen out of the medicine cabinet for me, I wouldn't object."

I fetched him the pills and a glass of water and sat on the arm of the sofa while he took them, awkwardly raising the glass to his lips without sitting up or moving his shoulder very much. 

"Sherlock, you're in pain. I can get you loosened up a bit without it turning into a sex free-for-all, you know, despite what my wife may think." I reached for his shoulder but he flinched away, pressing himself against the back of the sofa. Which was a little weird, because not only had we now kissed and sucked each other off, but I'd actually given him massages before. Not "I plan to fuck you up the arse next time I see you" type of massages, more like "Could you please help me out here because I haven't slept in three days and I just tackled an eighteen stone murderer to the ground after chasing him ten blocks and then I came home and played the violin for two hours and now I can't move my left arm" massages. So he really shouldn't have been so worried about me touching him. 

"It's fine, John, really." He pulled himself upright, wincing a little but able to stretch and wiggle a bit. "Tea?"

"Are you offering or asking?" 

"You did just get three hours of free babysitting out of me. The least you could do is flick the kettle on."

I smiled at that and went to make him tea, feeling a lot more relaxed than I had in the car. I rinsed out the empty baby bottle and some dishes Sherlock had left in the sink while I waited for the kettle to boil. Mary joined me in the kitchen, getting out three mugs just as the kettle clicked off.

"You get her to go down in the cot, then?" I asked.

"Of course. I know what I'm doing." She stood behind me and wrapped her arms around my chest, bringing her mouth close to my ear to whisper. "Are you all right?"

"'Course I am."

"Disappointed?"

I shrugged. A little. But there'd be other nights, I knew. I was also a little relieved that we wouldn't have to worry about Mrs. Hudson hearing or anything else interrupting us. But mostly I felt . . . content. Comfortable. More at home here in Sherlock's flat than I been since I'd moved out. Seeing Sherlock holding my sleeping daughter--it had settled something in me, something I hadn't even realized was upset. It was like the two parts of my life that I thought would always need to be separate now fit together. 

I made the tea and brought it out into the sitting room while Mary collected the baby's bottle and the rest of the accessories we'd brought over.

"Did she drink all the bottle?" Mary asked Sherlock when she sat down next to him on the sofa.

He sipped at his tea. "Yes." 

"And how much of it did you drink?"

"Sorry, what?" 

"It's breast milk, Sherlock. I know you tried it." She crossed her legs and leaned back against the cushions. "Did you at least leave most of it for her?"

He tried to hide behind his mug of tea. "I can't believe you think I'd steal milk from a baby."

Mary and I both laughed. "Don't worry," I told him. "We've all been there. It's pretty good, isn't it?"

"I'm not having this conversation," he said.

We stayed for another half-hour or so, drinking tea and gently teasing each other about babies and stretch marks and my blog-writing skills. When it was time to go Sherlock stood up and lifted the baby from the cot. 

"She's only this deeply asleep now because she was able to get so comfortable sleeping on me," he said, passing her over to Mary.

I smiled and said. "We'll leave the travel cot here for next time, all right?"

He nodded. "And you can pay me tomorrow."

"Sorry?"

"Tomorrow night. I'll come over, and you can pay me for babysitting. The tea wasn't enough, I'm afraid." He grinned and actually winked at us and then turned and disappeared down the hall with a dramatic swirl of his dressing gown.

I raised my eyebrows at Mary and she shrugged and said, "Tomorrow night, then," and I followed her down the stairs.

# # #

The baby stirred a little when we settled her in the car seat but she went back to sleep as soon as I started driving. 

"Well, that went pretty well, all things considered," I said, chuckling. "Guess we have a babysitter now."

Mary laughed and reached out to rest her hand on my thigh. I dropped one hand from the steering wheel and threaded my fingers through hers. 

"Hey, keep your hands on the wheel, please." Mary slapped lightly at my fingers and I did what she asked, momentarily confused. She grinned at me and then slid her hand farther up my thigh. "You just keep driving and leave everything else to me."

I glanced over at her for perhaps a second longer than was absolutely safe and she whacked my thigh. "Oi, eyes on the road, John."

"Okay, but what are you doing? Oh." My spine curled forward instinctively as she popped open the button on my trousers with a practiced flick of one hand. 

"If you can't focus on driving, I can stop," she said, her voice perfectly calm, as if she were talking about whether we should have soup or salad with dinner.

I took a steadying breath and checked my mirrors. "No, I'm fine. Not much traffic tonight."

"No, there's not," she agreed, and slipped her fingers through the fly of my pants. 

Her hand was cold and I hissed when it touched my skin. 

"Sorry," she said. "Forgot my gloves. It'll warm up quick." She wrapped her fingers around my soft cock and started to pull.

"Mary." 

"You want me to stop? Just say so." Her hand kept stroking me, but she was looking out the front window, watching the road, not me. 

And . . . I was starting to get hard, despite the temperature of her hand. I didn't say anything, just kept driving. There really wasn't much traffic for a Saturday night.

"Might be some police out tonight, you know, drink-driving patrols," she said, casually.

"Yeah. Good thing I just had the one glass of wine, huh?"

"Yes. Wouldn't want to get pulled over."

"Nope."

"Hmm." She shifted her grip, adding in a little twist of her wrist every time she got to the top of my cock. "Make sure you don't swerve or anything. They might stop you for that. And who knows what they'd find."

"I won't swerve," I said. We were about ten minutes from our house. I could last that long, no problem. 

She settled back in her seat but kept her hand on me. "So, you like this, then?"

"Seem to," I said.

"I guess so." She nodded and turned her face away to look out the side window. Her hand kept moving, more freely now, fingers slickened as I started to leak. "Beautiful night out," she said.

"Mm-hmm." Eyes on the road, I reminded myself.

"Lots of stars. Nice and clear. Anyone passing could look in and see what we're doing. What I'm doing to you." She turned her face back toward me and tilted her head. "Do you like that idea?" 

My breath caught and I checked the car's mirrors again. No one was close enough to see us. 

"Oh, you do like that idea." She squeezed and my cock thickened even more. Her hand was no longer cold at all. "You want someone else to see what I'm doing to you. A stranger. John. I'm surprised at you. We're not supposed to be doing this." She relaxed her grip and made as if to withdraw her hand from my pants. 

I clamped my left hand down hard on her wrist, refusing to let her go. 

"John. Both hands on the wheel. The baby's in the car."

That threw me out of the game for a moment. I let go of Mary's wrist. She realized her mistake and glanced into the backseat. "She's fine. She's asleep. It's all right."

"I know." I put both hands firmly on the steering wheel and humped a bit against her hand, indicating she should continue.

"We're almost home," she said, looking out the window again as she resumed stroking me, harder and faster than before. She'd worked my cock out through the opening in my fly, giving her easier access. "I thought we'd be done by now."

"Done?" Did she really think she could finish me off with a hand job during a twenty-minute car ride? Well, maybe she could.

"Mm-hmm," she said. "I'll have to move to Plan B."

I slowed to a stop at a red light. We were back in a residential area, only a few blocks from home. 

"No one behind us, is there?" she asked, looking over her shoulder while I double-checked in the rearview mirror. There were two cars across the intersection from us but no one behind us.

"Why?" I asked, and she pulled her seatbelt loose enough so she could lean over and fold her lips around my cock. 

I bucked at the sudden contact and only barely remembered to keep my foot on the brake pedal. "Mary." 

Without taking her mouth off my cock she reached over with her left hand and slid the gear lever into neutral and pulled the handbrake on. I looked into the rearview again. No one behind us yet. The light was still red. All right. I pumped my hips up and down as much as I could beneath her lips and the restraint of the lap belt. Mary hollowed her cheeks and sucked and I tried not to make any noise. 

The traffic light turned green and the cars across the intersection drove past us and I just sat in the driver's seat, thrusting into Mary's eager mouth and telling myself that no one was looking. And if anyone did see us, we'd be done in a minute, I'd drive away before the cops could come, no one would catch us, and-- "Oh, God, Mary, what are we doing? We're going to get caught." 

She murmured something against me, mouth full of my cock, and I put one hand in her hair and braced the other on the seat next to me and fucked her mouth, watching as she struggled not to choke or hit her head on the steering wheel. She gave me one final long suck and dug her fingernails hard into the soft skin just at my waist and I exploded into her mouth, hips and arse and back all coming up off the seat, arms and legs tensing which kept my foot firmly on the brake pedal, which was good, even though we had the handbrake on. 

I gasped and sank back down into the seat and Mary pulled off and sat up, wiping at her mouth. "Your pants are a bit wet," she said, and then a car behind us honked as the light cycled to green again and I shifted the car back into gear and drove us home.


	7. Chapter 7

Sherlock showed up early the next night.

I was doing the washing up from dinner when he rang the bell. 

"Nice scarf," he said, when I answered the door, nodding at the kitchen towel I'd slung over my shoulder.

"You're early. You can dry." I threw the towel at him as he stepped inside.

"Nope," he said. "I came to watch."

"Excuse me?"

"I want to watch you put the baby to bed. So I can do a better job next time."

I stared at him while he shed his coat and toed off his shoes. "Well. I guess that's admirable. Mary's nursing her right now. You could go watch, but you can't turn the light on and you can't find it erotic."

He raised an eyebrow at that and I shrugged. "Not my rules."

"It's hardly fair that Mary can put her to sleep by breastfeeding," he complained. "How am I supposed to replicate that? No wonder she wouldn't go to bed for me."

"She doesn't nurse her to sleep. She just feeds her and puts her down while she's still awake."

"Hmmph," he said, and stalked down the hall toward the nursery. I sighed and went back into the kitchen.

By the time I put the last of the dry dishes away and wiped down the worktop and table, Mary and Sherlock had emerged from the nursery and settled themselves on the sofa in the sitting room. I sat in the chair across from them.

"Got the baby to sleep, then?" I asked.

"Of course." Sherlock waved a hand as if that had never been an issue. 

"He's not allowed to watch me nursing again, John."

"I can't help it if you respond that way to the sound of my voice, Mary," Sherlock said, looking rather smug.

"It's not just the voice, it's the words, Sherlock." She shook herself as if she'd just gotten a chill and then said, "Anyway, about tonight. Now, obviously, there are a few different ways we could do this. I mean, the two of you could, and I could--" Mary twirled her hand, encompassing the three of us in a gesture that apparently meant "most efficient way to have a threesome."

Sherlock crossed his legs primly and said, "I take it you've spent some time thinking about all the possible permutations, Mary?"

"Of course I have." She smiled brightly at him.

"Sherlock tops," I said.

"Sorry, what?" Two pairs of shocked eyes turned toward me.

I sighed. They were going to think I had some long-hidden desire to be fucked by Sherlock, when, honestly, it hadn't started until very recently. Oh, well. I explained my reasoning. "I'm assuming both of us would be interested in either of the two primary options, yes?"

Sherlock nodded. I could see his pupils already starting to dilate, despite the brightly lit lamp in the room.

"So we'll eventually each have a go, but it makes sense for you to do it to me first. I mean, you've never done anything like this before, right?"

He blinked at me. "And you have?"

"Not with another bloke, no, but--"

"He's trying to say he's had things up his arse before," Mary said, and gave another one of her wide, "this is very exciting" smiles.

Sherlock swallowed and carefully uncrossed his legs. "I see," he said. "Yes, well, what you're proposing is . . . acceptable to me."

Mary giggled and then cleared her throat. "All right, then. Continuing on. Now, given you two, um, in that configuration, the most obvious thing for me to do would be--"

"You really have given this a lot of thought, haven't you?" I asked, a bit flabbergasted but mostly aroused.

"Yes. Shut up and listen to me. It would make sense for you to fuck me while he fucks you, John, but--are you okay? We don't have to do this."

"I'm fine." I stood up and adjusted myself. "I just need to take off my pants, all right?"

"It's a common problem," Sherlock said, standing up as well. "Perhaps the bedroom would be more comfortable for us all?"

# # #

Mary watched us both strip out of our trousers and then opened up the drawer in my nightstand. She tossed a new bottle of lubricant onto the bed.

I read the label and my knees threatened to buckle. I collapsed onto the bed, still wearing my too-tight pants. 

"I didn't know they made a special lubricant for that," Sherlock said, picking up the bottle.

"Is this what you bought last night? Please tell me no one we know saw you buying anal lube," I said to Mary.

"Relax. I was the only customer. It's supposed to last longer."

I cleared my throat and closed my eyes.

"John, you can change your mind. It's okay. We can try something else. Sherlock won't mind."

"Mm, no. I'm, ah, up for anything." Sherlock's voice sounded a little unsteady. I looked over at him. He was perched on the edge of the bed, still wearing his pants and his shirt, too. He looked as nervous as he had the first time he'd been here, but I could also see his cock was tenting the fabric of his pants. And God help me, I was nervous, too, but I wanted to know what it felt like to have that in me.

"You know me," I said to them both. "I said this is what I want to do and I have not changed my mind." I stood up again and pulled my pants off, tossing them on the floor on top of my trousers and socks. Sherlock and Mary both stared at me. I stared back and then pulled off my shirt and vest. "All right?" 

I knew what I looked like to them. I might not turn heads on the street like Sherlock did, but I was trim and fit and my scars were faded enough to pass for character instead of damage. Plus they both liked my cock, which at the moment was clearly ready for whatever configuration Mary eventually settled on.

Sherlock nodded. He was breathing very quickly now. Mary unbuttoned her blouse and wiggled out of her skirt. She slid an arm around his shoulders and gave him a quick squeeze before crawling across the bed toward me.

"Come here," she said. 

I stepped toward the bed and bent down to kiss her, pushing her blouse off her shoulders and unfastening her bra with practiced movements. She was trying to talk again, ready to outline more possible ways we could do this, I'm sure, but I didn't let her speak. A couple swipes of my tongue and she gave up, leaning into me and digging her fingers into my neck.

I pulled away after a few moments so I could climb into the bed. Sherlock was sitting on the far side from us; I got in between them. They both turned to face me as I lay back against the pillows. "We don't need to plan everything. It'll happen naturally. Anyone says stop and we stop. Everyone okay with that?"

Sherlock nodded again and Mary crowded up against my side, licking along my jawline and running her fingers in circles at my hip. Sherlock watched us for a moment and then stood to remove his pants. He grabbed the bottle of lube from its spot on the bed and drizzled some into his hand. My heart sped up and I wrapped one arm tightly around Mary.

"I just want to see what it feels like," he said, taking himself in his hand. "It's a little thicker than what we used the other night. Mmm." He rocked into his own stroke. "Try some."

Mary caught the tube and squirted some onto me. It was cool and very slick. My cock got harder as she gave me a few experimental pulls. "This'll do," she said, and licked lube from the palm of her hand. I groaned at the sight and buried my face in her neck.

"Turn over, love," she said. I didn't question her, just rolled over so I lay on my stomach next to her. She ran her hand down my spine, stopping to linger at the top of my arse, slick fingers dipping very slightly between my cheeks. I sighed into the space between pillows.

"That's it, just relax," she said, and slid her fingers down farther. They ghosted over my arsehole, not lingering or pressing yet, just getting me ready. As she'd told Sherlock, this wasn't something new for us. 

Mary changed her position a little and then the bed on the other side of me dipped as Sherlock joined her behind me. He sat on his heels with his knees touching my thigh. I tried not to tense up as his hand glided up my leg and settled on my arse. 

I heard Mary pop the cap on the lube again. "We'll start with just a finger," she said.

"No." Sherlock's deep rumble came from just above my left hip. 

I twisted to look over my shoulder at him. "Sherlock, I want to do this, but you can't just--oh, ahhh." I gasped as the moist heat of his tongue lapped quickly over my anus. "Oh, God," I moaned.

Sherlock paused but didn't straighten up, waiting to see what my reaction meant. Mary clarified for me.

"Yeah, he likes that, see, but that's one of the things I don't really like to do. Glad you're here, Sherlock."

"John should know by now that I'm willing to lick anything."

I laughed into the mattress and felt Mary move toward him. I couldn't really see what they were doing, but I didn't care. I rocked my hips back, hoping for more contact with Sherlock's tongue. He obliged. He slowed as he became more sure of himself, licking firmly against me, holding my cheeks apart with his hands. My cock ached and twitched against the bed; his tongue was incredibly arousing, but it wasn't enough. 

"More." I lifted my arse toward him. "Please, your fingers, I need more."

He sat up again and he and Mary both shifted around behind me. I closed my eyes and exhaled, nerves humming, waiting to see what they would do. Mary started, her finger slick as she edged it into me, parting my arse cheeks so they both could see what they were doing to me.

"Mm, it just takes a minute while he relaxes," she told Sherlock, and I tried to do what she said, willing my body to ignore the instinct to tighten against this invasion. She wiggled in a little deeper and I remembered how good it felt, just her fingers or one of the toys we used sometimes. Tonight promised to be even better. I let myself melt a little more into the mattress and spread my legs a bit wider. My erection had flagged a bit beneath me, but I wasn't in a hurry. 

Mary had her finger deep in me now, my body easily accommodating her. She moved it abruptly to the side and my breath caught. Another finger, not hers, cooler and rougher and less sure. I arched into Sherlock's touch so he would know it was okay, and soon I'd stretched enough for them both to fit comfortably. And then Mary crooked her finger, said, "Here," and brushed against my prostate and a sharp flare of pleasure shot through me, straightening my cock once more. My toes curled and my hands made fists in the rumpled bedclothes. 

Mary eased her finger out and said to Sherlock. "Go ahead. Use more lube. You'll want to have three fingers in before you try anything else."

"You seem to know an awful lot about this for someone without a penis," Sherlock said, a low rumble of laughter slipping out.

"I told you. He's had stuff up his arse before." Mary crawled up the bed toward my head. I turned to look at her as she moved the pillows around, sitting up against the headboard so my head ended up between her legs. "Mm, John. I'm ready for some attention, okay?"

"Mm-hmm." I opened my mouth to tongue her as Sherlock slid his second finger into my body. It took me a few moments to figure out how to focus on Mary while he explored inside me, sending distracting but very welcome waves of sensation through me. He finally got a rhythm going with his hand and I copied it as I lapped and sucked at Mary.

"Yes, John, that's good, ah. How're you doing?"

I mumbled something positive without taking my mouth off of her. 

"Third finger," Sherlock announced and I groaned and forced myself to relax again against the moment of increased pressure. "All right?" he asked.

I lifted my head, propping myself up a bit on my forearms. "Very good," I said. "Just--" 

He stabbed at my prostate and I gasped. "Yeah, that. Do that." I lowered my head to Mary and she rutted against my mouth. I slid two fingers into her and she matched my moans.

Sherlock kept fingering me, but he also kept shifting himself between my legs, clearly unable to get comfortable. After a couple minutes he said my name. His voice was hoarse and ragged. "I want--is it--do you think you're ready?"

Was I ready? Yeah, I was. I pulled away from Mary a little. I'd go back to her in a minute, but it was too hard to split my focus between the two of them right now. 

Mary sat up from where she'd slid down the pillows a bit and looked at me and Sherlock as if we were a puzzle she needed to solve. "Get up on your hands and knees a bit, John," she said.

It sounded as good as any other idea, so I did what she suggested. Sherlock was no longer touching me; he was hanging back at the foot of the bed, holding the tube of lube in one hand and his thickened cock in the other. I shifted my weight off my left hand so I could twist around enough to see him properly. "Everything all right?" I was supposed to be the nervous, reluctant one here, wasn't I?

He cleared his throat. "John, my three fingers are not nearly as wide as my cock."

Mary giggled. 

"Erm, no, I know. It's all right, Sherlock. Just go slow, okay? I'll let you know if it's too much."

He nodded, not taking his eyes off my arse on display in front of him. The sight of him like that, naked and focused entirely on me, wanting me, ratcheted up my own desire. I could feel my cock pressing taut and leaking against my stomach.

Sherlock's hands were shaking but he managed to flip the cap on the lube. Mary said his name sharply before he had a chance to squeeze any more out.

"Are you absolutely certain you don't need to be wearing a condom for this? It's a lot riskier than oral sex."

Sherlock exhaled, steadied his hands and met her eyes. "I promise, I am completely clean. I understand if you don't trust me, but I haven't shared a needle in over fifteen years. And I've only had sex with you two."

"I swear to God, Sherlock, if you give John a disease I will shoot you again and I will not miss."

"Not funny, Mary," I said. I turned toward her again, sitting up so I was on my knees in the middle of the bed.

"She's not joking," Sherlock spoke softly from just behind me, his breath tickling my ear, and then he pressed his back against mine. I could feel his cock hot and hard and slick, pressing high against my arse. Oh, God, we were really doing this.

I dropped back down onto my hands and rooted my knees as firmly as I could on the mattress. "Now," I said. 

In front of me, Mary reached out both hands to cup my face. I looked at her and then felt Sherlock's cock press into my arse.

I sucked in a breath and he stopped. I exhaled and said, "It's okay, keep going. It doesn't hurt." It was more just the idea of it--Sherlock's cock was in me now, just a little bit, but he was slowly pressing in farther, and the idea was completely overwhelming but the feeling was incredible, and I know people get hung up on all the gay/straight stuff and sometimes I do, too, but it doesn't matter, when someone takes a slick, hard object and slides it carefully into you until it presses against your prostate, it feels good. And when it's someone you love doing it, it feels even better.

I hung my head down and exhaled again as he situated himself. "Okay?" he asked. I nodded. I was on my hands and knees and he was kneeling up behind me, knees straddling my legs, and his cock was so far in me that his pelvis fit flush against my arse. He paused to shrug awkwardly out of his shirt; I think that was the first time he'd been completely naked since Mary and I had first invited him into our bed.

"Oh, God, John," Mary said, squirming down the bed so she lay beneath me. "He's in you, isn't he? That's so hot. Why is that so hot? Kiss me." 

I opened my eyes to look at her. I lowered myself a little to meet her mouth, and felt Sherlock moving with me. He curved himself over me; the smooth skin of his chest felt cool against my back. The heat and pressure of his body in mine was almost unbearable. It was much more intense than fingers or any toy I'd ever had inside me, at once harder and more supple than anything else. He moved his hips once, very slowly, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut again to keep myself under control.

"Oh," Mary said, beneath me. "John, your face. So beautiful. You need to--" She grabbed my waist and pulled me down so my cock met her pelvis. She shivered as I brushed against her and then canted her hips and pushed herself onto me.

Sherlock tried to follow us as we moved but ended up pulling most of the way out. I started to push myself back onto him without losing contact with Mary, but it was a lot harder to coordinate than I'd realized. Not only was I literally being pulled in two directions, but there was so much sensation coursing through every bit of me that I couldn't concentrate on either one of them. Sherlock and Mary--which one was I supposed to choose?

"John, you stay still," one of them said. "We'll move."

Brilliant. I sort of sagged in relief, and there was a brief moment where they discussed logistics and then Sherlock tightened one arm around my chest and Mary moved a little bit farther down the bed and then they were both fucking me at once and it was without question the most amazing thing I have ever experienced.

Sherlock ended up doing most of the work, I think, setting the pace while Mary did her best to hang on beneath me and keep my cock firmly entrenched in her body. I just supported myself in between them and let the waves of pleasure wash through me, enveloping and overwhelming me so I lost all sense of time or place or even who I was and where my body ended and theirs began. Everything was just pressure and heat and wetness and skin and friction that lit up parts of my body I hadn't even known existed until then.

I think they talked; I think Mary asked questions about what Sherlock was doing and feeling and he told her I was hot and tight and she moved faster and harder beneath me in response, but I can't be sure. All I know is at one point I couldn't do it anymore, couldn't be with them both and still be alive and in one piece, so I let go and they both clenched me and held me close while I exploded and dissolved and melted and trembled into tiny bits in between them. 

When I came back everything was sticky and Mary moved quickly sideways to pull her knickers back on before Sherlock slid out of me, semen and lube and sweat dripping everywhere. He reached back behind himself to grab his shirt and pull it on before collapsing forward against me, half-draped over my back. I could feel his ribs moving against me with each panting breath. "Maybe I am gay," he said, and Mary kicked at his leg. 

The movement jostled me and I groaned and rolled onto my back, trying to wriggle my way into a comfortable spot but running into the jumble of everyone else's bodies.

"John, are you all right?" Sherlock rested one hand on my hip but didn't move to give me more space.

"Yeah." I barely recognized the sound of my own voice. "I." That wasn't right. I tried again. "You. You two. Both need to do that."

"What's that, love?" Mary stroked a hand over the hair above my ear. 

"In the middle. You both need to. Be in the middle like that. Between the others. That was . . . ." I trailed off, unable to think of an adequate adjective.

Mary chuckled and kept petting my hair. I let my eyes drift shut. Mary and Sherlock both moved around me a bit, presumably trying to get more comfortable but I just stayed where I was, sinking deeper into the mattress. It was wet and crowded and I wasn't entirely sure whose arm was under my head but I was still almost falling asleep.

"I'll chip in for a bigger bed," said a deep voice to my right. So it was Sherlock's arm under me. Maybe. I blinked my eyes open and glanced to my left and yes, Mary was there, curled on her side, dark blue eyes watching us sleepily.

"I'll pay half," Sherlock said. "I take up the most room." 

"Yes, you do," I said, and pushed his arm away from my head so I could rest on a pillow instead. 

"You two can pick it out, of course. It would seem strange if all three of us were to do so."

Mary giggled and squirmed in closer to me, then reached her arm across my chest so her hand just rested on the edge of Sherlock's. 

"We'll need all new sheets, too," she said. "A few sets, since they seem to need changing a lot lately."

I closed my eyes and started to drift back towards sleep when I realized something. "Wait, wait." Full sentences were still a little hard to form but this seemed important. "Are you planning on--spending the night here? In the bigger bed?" 

I craned my neck around to look at him and saw the shocked look that crossed his face. Good. Much as I loved him in apparently more ways than one, I didn't really want him moving in with us. 

"God, no, John. Even a king-sized bed wouldn't have enough room for us all to sleep comfortably."

"Okay." That was good. Sherlock could come over sometimes and we'd all have a good time and there'd be plenty of room for us all. Because that was fun, Sherlock and Mary. I smiled and closed my eyes, firmly cocooned in between the two of them.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and I sat next to each other on the bed and it was awkward again. When Mary was with us she tended to take charge of the kissing and the stroking and so on while Sherlock and I just went straight to concentrating on our cocks. She doubtless would say it was because we were men; I thought maybe it was because foreplay didn't come naturally when you started the relationship with a text message inviting your best friend over to have sex with you and your wife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief detour into darkness at the end of this one. Sorry!

That Friday evening I opened the door to find Sherlock standing on the stoop with a bottle of wine and a grin. 

"Jogging bottoms and an old t-shirt?" he said. "Really, John? I remember when you used to dress up for me. Has the novelty worn off already?"

"Maybe if I had any idea you were coming over," I said. 

"I told you yesterday."

"Sherlock. We haven't spoken all week."

He tilted his head. "Then who did I make plans with yesterday?"

"I've no idea. Hopefully just yourself." I glanced back over my shoulder to where Mary was watching telly in the sitting room. "Well, come on in, but we're not doing anything, erm, romantic tonight."

He stepped up into the front hall and strode past me into the sitting room. "You can't change your plans for an old friend? I've brought wine."

"We'll take the wine." Mary smiled and took the bottle from him. "You're welcome to stay and have a glass. It's not like we have any other plans."

Sherlock pulled off his gloves but left his coat on. "You definitely don't want to--" He looked uncertainly from me to Mary and back again.

"Not tonight," Mary said. "But I'll get some glasses." She went into the kitchen.

Sherlock stood staring at me like a little boy who'd been told he couldn't have any dessert.

I shrugged and told him, "She's got her period."

"And that prevents her . . . ?"

"No, but it's the first day and I guess it hurts. Sorry." My face was turning bright red, I could feel it. Why this was more embarrassing than anything else the three of us had done, I couldn't say.

"Oh. Well, I guess I can stay for wine. Do you have any biscuits? I don't think I've eaten today." He started unbuttoning his coat and I sighed. I guess not everything had changed.

Mary poured the wine and we settled in the sitting room, the telly still playing although no one was watching it. Mary reached over me to grab the remote and click it off. She fluttered her hand at me and Sherlock. "You know, if you two want, you could--." 

Oh. It was pretty clear what she meant, but that wasn't really the deal, was it? It was supposed to be the three of us, not just me and Sherlock. That would be . . . I don't know what that would be. Possibly a bit not good. So far it seemed like this whole experiment hadn't really affected the relationship between me and Mary, but that was because we were in this together. Sherlock and I couldn't--we shouldn't--we weren't a couple. 

Mary noticed my hesitation. "I'd watch, of course," she added. She set her glass down on the coffee table and slid her arm around my waist. "It was just an idea," she said softly. She kissed the skin below my left ear and I shivered. She knew what that spot did to me. Why she apparently wanted me to take Sherlock to bed without her wasn't exactly clear, but I could tell that was what she wanted. Maybe she just really liked to watch. I had to admit I really liked knowing she was watching.

I looked over at Sherlock to see what he thought. He was concentrating on taking a rather long sip of his wine, but then he lowered the glass and looked at me. Yeah, no real question there. He was willing, possibly even eager. I swallowed away any doubts I had. Because a month ago I wouldn't have believed it, but right now, if Sherlock was willing, so was I. 

# # #

The new bed had been delivered the day before. We'd put the old one in the spare room, with the intention of making it into a guest room someday, if we ever got around to cleaning out the boxes and extra baby equipment that had found their way into the space. For now it just sat in the middle of all the clutter, and we'd woken up in our new bed for the first time that morning, the extra space and the new, crisp sheets feeling like a small, private luxury.

Sherlock raised his eyebrows when he saw the new bed, then smiled and kicked off his shoes. The bed was several inches higher than the old one but he was still tall enough that he could drop onto it, bouncing like a child. He nodded his approval and patted a spot next to him. I shook my head and pulled off my socks before joining him.

"I'm just going to go change into my pyjamas," Mary said. "Go ahead and get comfortable." She gave another of her permissive little handwaves and disappeared into the bathroom. 

Sherlock and I sat next to each other on the bed and it was awkward again. When Mary was with us she tended to take charge of the kissing and the stroking and so on while Sherlock and I just went straight to concentrating on our cocks. She doubtless would say it was because we were men; I thought maybe it was because foreplay didn't come naturally when you started the relationship with a text message inviting your best friend over to have sex with you and your wife. 

"Is this, er, weirder than the other times?" I asked him.

He nodded. "Seems Mary is the ice-breaker." He rolled his shoulders back a little and half-turned to face me.

"Yeah, well. She'd probably tell us to start by kissing," I said.

He chuckled. "John. You're so . . . you."

"What is that supposed to mean?" I'd been about to lean forward but now I straightened up away from him.

"It's not an insult. I like it. You're very--practical."

"Practical?"

"Yes."

"Shut up," I told him, because being called practical did not tend to put me in a more romantic mood.

He cocked an eyebrow, daring me.

I tilted my head at him, narrowed my eyes and then launched up into a hard kiss, twisting the collar of his shirt in my hands.

He brought one hand up against my cheek, but didn't try to break away. His fingers were cool and firm against my skin. He stroked down to my jaw once, then pulled his mouth away from mine.

"You need to shave," he said.

"Do I?"

"Yes," he said. "You're very prickly."

"But then I couldn't do this," I said, and quickly rubbed my chin up his face, leaving a trace of faint pink lines from his throat to his cheekbone.

He pulled back from me again and blinked twice. The wry, confident Sherlock of a moment ago was gone. "Why did that feel good?"

I laughed. "Surprise? Stimulation? You like it a little rough?"

"Do I?"

"I don't know. Do you want to find out?"

He shivered a little. "What would that entail?"

"Whatever you want it to," I said, and started to undress. He watched me strip everything off but didn't move himself. I think he was still processing, trying to figure out what "a little rough" might mean and whether he would like it. Well, I'd start slow.

I gave his chest a little shove and he fell willingly back onto the bed. I straddled him and started in on the top button of his shirt. He shifted his arms so he could work on the bottom buttons. I let him until our hands met in the middle and then I grabbed both his wrists and pinned them to the bed on either side of him. He inhaled sharply and wiggled so his shirt fell open.

Keeping his wrists immobilized, I bent down to run my tongue from his navel to his nipple, on the opposite side of his chest from the scar. I made sure my chin followed the path of my tongue, scraping at his pale skin.

Sherlock arched up into it, a low, muttered groan escaping his lips.

"Like that, do you?"

He nodded and turned his arms over so his palms were facing up. He wasn't trying to get free of me, though; he was just pressing against my hands, testing the strength of my hold. I tightened my grip around each of his arms, hard enough to leave bruises, something I wasn't ever comfortable doing with Mary, even if she probably did know a dozen different ways to kill me with her bare hands. Sherlock still didn't try to break free. Interesting. Bondage wasn't really in my plans for the evening, though. I liked his hands a little too much for him not to be able to use them. 

I let go of his wrists, dragged my nails up his sides and then reached for his shoulders. "Get this off. You're always wearing your bloody shirt." 

Sherlock hesitated and I dug my fingers into his shoulder muscles through the smooth fabric. He grunted and then quickly shrugged out of the shirt, barely even rising off the bed to do so. 

I pushed the shirt out of the way and sat up, a knee on each side of Sherlock's narrow torso. Mary chose that moment to come out of the bathroom in her dressing gown.

"Ooh, you two didn't waste any time, did you?" She sat down in the chair next to the bed, pulling her bare feet up onto the seat. "Got him right where you want him, John?"

"Not yet," I said, and slid down his body so I could unbutton his trousers. Sherlock moved to make it easier for me but clearly didn't mind leaving me in control. There was already a damp spot on the crotch of his pants. I lowered my mouth and bit at it, not hard but also not gentle and he growled and shoved down his pants, freeing his cock.

"John," he said, and I felt my own body respond to the darkness of his voice. 

I licked my lips, inches away from him. "Is this what you want?"

He shook his head, dark curls flopping against the pale cream of our new sheets. "No. I want you to fuck me. Please."

All at once I was fully hard, poised over him. I held myself still, breathed. "All right."

"How do you want me?" He started to sit up, no doubt thinking of how I'd been on my hands and knees for him.

I pushed him back down. "Stay like that. I want to watch you."

He nodded rapidly, damp hair falling over his eyes, then said, "Er, will it work like that? On my back?"

"Sure. I've done it with Mary this way."

His eyes flew open. "You've done this? With Mary? Why?"

I shrugged. "Variety? To see what it's like, I guess."

"Did she like it?" He turned his head to look at her. "Did you like it?"

"Eh, it's fine," she said. "It's not like I have a prostate, but there's something to be said for having all my holes filled at the same time." She wiggled her fingers to show what else we'd gotten up to when we'd tried that particular experiment.

Sherlock closed his eyes and took a few breaths. His face was starting to turn pink. "You two never cease to astound me." 

I smiled and reached for the lube and our plumpest pillow. "Lift up." I patted his hip and he let me slide the pillow under him so I'd have a better angle.

Mary cleared her throat as I spread a bit of lube over my index finger. "John, don't be rough. With this."

I frowned and glanced over at her. She hadn't been in the room when I was holding Sherlock down; did she actually think I'd been trying to hurt him? "I know what I'm doing, Mary. Don't worry." 

"It's just, if he hasn't ever had anything . . . ."

"I have," Sherlock said quickly. 

"Sorry, what?" I squeezed the tube a little too hard and ended up with lube running down my hand. I wasn't sure what to do with it so I palmed Sherlock's cock and he pushed up into my hand before replying.

"Ah, in the last week or so. I may have."

"With your own hand?"

"No, John. I hired a prostitute and asked her to peg me. Yes, with my own hand. Mostly in the shower."

Mary curled up in the chair and laughed and I gave his cock a squeeze that was probably a little too hard to be pleasant. He flinched and made a noise that made my cock ache. I loved being able to make him go from his usual sarcasm to helpless in the space of a heartbeat.

"Right, then," I said. "You may have long arms but I'm fairly certain this will be better."

"Mmm, you're very certain of your skills." 

"Shut up," I said, and bent to lick up the length of his cock. 

"Okay," he breathed.

I was a little surprised at how quickly I'd gotten used to his taste. I sucked him into my mouth and let my finger draw its way slowly down below his balls. 

Sherlock twisted his hands into my hair and pulled. Hard. "Stop. Too much," he said, gasping. "I mean, not, like the first time, just--"

"I get it," I said, after I'd let him slide out of my mouth. Yeah, it was a little soon for him to come, considering I hadn't even gotten a finger into him yet.

I sat up between his legs. He had his feet flat on the bed and his knees up; I pushed them a bit farther apart. He really was quite a bit more flexible than me. I stroked down his perineum, the skin smooth and hot beneath my finger. I stopped when I reached his anus, but he pushed against me, eager for my finger. 

"Patience," I told him, and put my right hand on his knee to hold him still.

He let me open him slowly, writhing beneath each touch. I watched his face and his neck, stretching obscenely against the pillow. There were flickers of pain but every time I saw one I paused and waited and soon his features would relax back into pleasure. I soon had three fingers in him and a hand on my cock and Mary was moaning in the chair as she watched us, one hand pressing against herself through her night clothes.

I kept my fingers in him and shifted my legs, moving my right hand from myself to his thigh. "I'm going to try, now," I told him, stroking from his leg up through his dark, dense pubic hair. "I will stop if you need me to." I closed my hand around his cock, which was leaking enough that his hair was a matted mess.

He jerked his hips at my touch. "Please, please, please. I won't want you to stop."

I chuckled at his confidence and squirted more lube onto both of us. When I slipped my fingers out I could see how open he was; the tip of my cock went in easily, and he immediately pushed against me. 

"Patience," I repeated, holding myself still while I watched the tension in his body rise and then dissolve. I moved forward a bit more, an inch, maybe, no more, and he whimpered and then growled and pushed down on me again, pulling at my hips with both hands. "Come on, John, _do it_." His voice was gritty and thick.

"I am doing it," I said, and I kept moving steadily into him until I was completely enclosed.

I paused, breathing heavily. I had done this once with Mary, but this was completely different. That had been more spur of the moment. We were already in the middle of a regular fuck, when she'd suddenly suggested this-- _Oh, please, shove it up my arse, John,_ I believe had been the suggestion--and so of course I had, and it had felt good, but it was also a lot faster and blurrier in my mind because I'd already been so far along when I started that I could've been fucking a hole in the bed and I wouldn't have known the difference.

Now, I was going so slow I could feel everything. I could feel Sherlock's muscles twitching around me as he tried to relax. I could feel how smooth he was inside, and hot, and much tighter than Mary had ever been, even before she'd had the baby. I wanted to thrust right away, wanted to be rough again, to pound him, but I knew I had to wait, watching his chest and his face as he exhaled and the tension turned to something else and he opened his eyes and then quickly squeezed them shut again and then opened them and said, his voice hollow, "I think you could probably move now."

I moved. I leaned forward over him and pushed my cock in and out of him and the first couple of times he flinched and clenched and moaned but then the moans shifted in tone and he started to move with me, rocking and tilting to meet each of my thrusts. I knew Mary was watching us intently, but all I could think about was Sherlock, how good he felt around me and how I was the reason for the look on his face, pure bliss, something no one else had probably ever seen. 

We could have done this before. The realization hit me hard. He'd said it himself, after our first night together, that morning in the coffee shop. _We should've done that years ago_ , he'd said, and I'd laughed and said I wouldn't have been ready, but what if I had been? What if he'd asked and I said yes? Nothing would be the same now, would it? But that--that wasn't acceptable. I needed my life as it was now, with Mary, and the baby, and, and Sherlock. But I'd always had Sherlock, for years, and now I was fucking him and I liked it, it was _glorious_ , the sounds he was making and the way we felt together. What if we had done this years ago? What--what would have happened? Where--what--where would I be right now? What--?

I stopped moving, trying to get my thoughts under control, because as good as this felt, I was thinking so much that it was starting to also feel horrible. Sherlock panted beneath me; I'm not sure if he even noticed I had stopped, or that I was now slightly softer inside him. 

"John, I need--" He tried to raise his right arm. I hadn't even realized that I'd pinned his wrists to the bed on either side of him again. I shifted to let him free and he grabbed hold of his own cock, tugging it wildly as he resumed the movement of his hips; I hardened again immediately, but just held myself still while he moved around me. It was enough, for him, at least. He pushed himself up a bit, weight on his free hand, so he could shove his arse harder against me--that pillow beneath him was taking quite a beating. I leaned into him, unsure of exactly what position was best, more concerned with helping him climax-- _watching_ him climax--than with my own pleasure. 

He was so far gone that his hand was slipping, losing the rhythm of his strokes. I reached in between us so I could wrap my left hand over his fingers and pull with him. The tips of my fingers brushed the tip of his cock; he gasped and jolted upright, his left arm wrapping tightly around me as he came in between us in long spurts, coating both our hands and covering his torso.

His arse tightened around me with each spurt; even after he was spent I could still feel the spasms inside him. He loosened the grip he had on me and sank back into the bed. I pushed into him one final time and then slid out, knowing that it would be uncomfortable for him if I stayed in long enough to finish myself. Maybe he would suck me now; I doubted that he would be the type to fuss over hygiene. 

I glanced over at Mary. She was sitting up straight in the chair and had her hand over her mouth, but it wasn't covering the expression I expected. Her eyes flicked to me briefly and then went back to Sherlock. 

"Sherlock. Sit up," she said.

He twisted his neck to look at her but didn't move from his position flat on his back. "Can't," he said. He was breathless but also sounded petulant.

" _Sit up_ ," she repeated. "Let me see your back."

He didn't move. "John," he said, and grazed my cock with his fingers. "Finish." He lifted his pelvis toward me.

I sat back on my heels and nodded toward Mary. I was already less hard than I'd been a moment ago. "What's she talking about? Why does she want you to sit up?"

He growled and twisted his head toward Mary, his right shoulder coming up off the bed. "This is really not necessary at the moment."

"Sherlock," she said. I had no idea what she was on about but there was no arguing with her tone.

I slid farther down the bed, away from him, and he rolled to his right, onto his stomach, a sigh running its way through his body.

His back was covered in scars. Not neat, pale, surgical scars like the one on his chest. These were twisted and thick and red, stretched over skin that had been flayed away and then allowed to regrow untended. 

"What? Sherlock." I crawled up the bed to kneel next to him and raised my hand over the worst of the marks, a cruel inches-long curve sitting just above his waist that was only half-healed, scraps of scab still clinging to it. "Sherlock--what?" I repeated, and then changed it to, "When?" because it was actually pretty clear what had happened. 

He sighed again, the sound half-swallowed by the mattress where he pressed his face against it. "In Serbia. Right before--before I came back. I wasn't quite as fast or as clever as I needed to be. I got caught." 

I ran my gaze over the rest of his back again. At least a dozen lash marks, though all the others were at least healed, ugly and thickened as they were. I ghosted my fingers lightly over him. When I touched one of the larger scars on his left shoulder he made a small, strangled noise.

"Sorry, sorry." I pulled my hand back. 

Sherlock turned his head to the side so he was no longer speaking into the mattress. "It's okay," he said. "It's not bad."

"It's not bad? Sherlock, it's _horrible_."

"I meant, it doesn't feel bad. When you touch it."

"Wha--? Jesus, Sherlock." I scrubbed my hand over my eyes. He was aroused when I touched his horribly maimed, whip-scarred skin. Of course he was. "I'm not," I stopped, unsure of what I meant to say. My eyes were drawn again to the wound at the base of his spine. 

"This one." I put my fingers lightly next to the scabs, a doctor's touch, not a lover's. "It's from the same time? It should've healed long ago. Christ, it's been what, two years?"

"It's almost healed," he said. "Several times. But it never really--I think the position it's in, it gets irritated by my waistband, and when I move, and--"

"We're way beyond that, Sherlock. This is not just _irritated_. This is serious. It needs to be taken care of. It's--it's treatable." My agitation was growing the more I looked at it and thought about it. "You're lucky you haven't come down with a major infection. There's no reason for someone your age with no underlying illnesses to have a chronic wound like this. You need to see a doctor and get it cared for properly."

He turned his head away from me, exhaling moodily into the space between our pillows. "Well, lucky for me I've got a doctor on call, don't I?" 

"No, you bloody well don't!" I shouted. "Because you never told me about it, did you? Not for two years, and you just let me fuck you into the mattress with that monstrosity on your back--that must've hurt, just now, didn't it?" Jesus Christ. I slid away from him, putting a few inches of space between us.

"It didn't hurt. I can barely feel it anymore."

"Of course you can't." My heart was beating too fast. "That's nerve damage, Sherlock." I reached out and splayed my fingers over the wound. His skin was hot and damp. "Feel that?"

I heard him swallow against the mattress. "Yes."

"Are you lying?" I thought he was lying. "Can you actually feel that or have you completely lost all sensation after two years of _neglecting to get proper medical care_?" I didn't care that I was shouting. Mary tried to shush me but if the baby woke up she could just go deal with it.

"I can feel it, John. I'll go to the doctor, all right?"

He was humoring me, telling me what I wanted to hear, like he always did. It was never the truth, with him. Something inside me shifted, all the affection and desire I'd felt for him earlier twisting into an entirely different emotion. I could feel myself starting to tremble, my hand starting to shake and I had to stop it, couldn't let him know he was doing this to me again. I pushed down on his back; the rough edge of the scabs caught at my skin. He whimpered--he could feel something at least. I huffed out a laugh and then struck him, a quick swipe of my hand over the injury and then I did it again. I let my fingers catch on the scabs and tore at them, feeling dried blood and skin give way beneath my hand. Fresh blood welled up and I jerked away, realizing what I had done.

Sherlock didn't move. I sat frozen, perched on my knees next to him, wondering how to fix what I had just done.

Mary was the first one to speak. "Sherlock, you're bleeding on our new sheets." 

"Then get me a towel so I can bleed on that instead." He still didn't move, but I couldn't tell if it was because he was in pain or just being his usual imperious self. The feeling of darkness bloomed through my chest again.

Mary moved over onto the bed on the other side of Sherlock and I growled, not wanting her to touch him but not willing to help him myself, either. I slid off the side of the bed, away from them both

"I'm taking a shower." I grabbed my clothes and went into the bathroom, took a towel from the cabinet and threw it out toward Sherlock. "Clean yourself up." 

I stood in the shower for a long time, not washing, just letting the water flow, turning it hotter and hotter until I could barely stand still beneath it. 

Sherlock's back. Sherlock's arse, wrapped around my cock, pulsing with pleasure. Sherlock's back, covered with wounds that should've been healed. That should never have happened, might never have happened if everything had been different, if I had gone to him, years ago. Sherlock's cock, spurting in between us. _We should've done that years ago._

"John!" Mary banged on the door.

"Go away."

"John, stop it." 

"Stop it?" She--she was taking his side. "Mary, you started all this. And you knew exactly what you were getting into and who you were getting into it with. So don't act surprised now that it's turning to shit."

"It's not--. John, it's not." 

I heard a rattling noise and a moment later she was in the bathroom.

"That door was locked."

"John, it's not a real lock, sweetie. I opened it with a paperclip."

"Well, maybe they teach you that in assassin school but I didn't learn it in med school." I regretted saying it immediately--this was not about her past--but she ignored me anyway.

"I need you to come take a look. I think he might need stitches."

"So stitch him up."

"I can't." 

"Yes, you could if you wanted to. If he really needed it."

"John, I'm serious. Just come take a look."

"No. You know where my med bag is. Either stitch him up yourself or take him someplace. I'm not touching him." I couldn't. I couldn't even look at his back again. Not only would it remind me of all the fucking secrets he kept from me, but now I'd just gone and made it worse. I was a doctor, but I had just chosen to hurt instead of heal. Why? If you'd asked me a few days ago I would have said my life was perfect, but right now everything was wrong. What was the matter with me? I turned the water hotter until the handle wouldn't move any farther. Mary stood for a moment outside the shower, then she turned and went back out to Sherlock, the door clicking shut behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There should be one more chapter posted next week, assuming I figure out what happens next. Thanks for reading!


	9. Chapter 9

I'd like to say that the next week was one of the worst weeks ever, but of course I'd had many weeks that were much worse, and more than a fair share of them were caused by either Sherlock or Mary. So I'll just say that the next week was not good: a long, unpleasant stream of everyday life broken up by frequent reminders that I was, in fact, the sort of man who hurt those he loved.

I went to work. I came home. Mary made chili for dinner. She and I went to bed together and didn't have sex. But that didn't mean anything; she still had her period and we probably wouldn't have anyway. It didn't mean anything. Life just went on as normal. The baby learned how to stand up and spent her time walking along holding onto every piece of furniture but never letting go.

Mary kept trying to talk about it.

"We should talk about it, John."

"Nope." 

Mary sighed and handed me the last of the dinner plates to dry. "Okay. Maybe we should ignore it so it will go away."

"Mm. Glad you understand," I said.

She yanked the plug from the sink drain in exasperation and left me to finish putting everything away. 

Talking wasn't going to make it better. I knew I had over-reacted and I knew I needed to apologize but the problem was, although I was sorry I'd hurt Sherlock physically, I didn't think I was actually wrong to be upset. Sherlock should've told me about his back, told me he'd been tortured and, more than that, he should never have let the wounds go untreated for so long.

"So, what, John?" Mary wouldn't stop bringing it up. "Are we just never going to see him again?"

I shrugged and slid into bed next to her, clicked the light on the nightstand off.

"How long do you think that would last, hmm? Because you know what? I miss him. And I know you do, too. And I miss you--I miss the way you are with him. And I'm not just talking about sex, either. You and I have a perfectly good sex life without Sherlock, but he makes the rest of our lives better, don't you think? You're happier when you know he's around."

Yeah. That's the problem with Sherlock. He messes up my life even as he makes it so much better. I kissed Mary goodnight and rolled over and went to sleep without answering her. It didn't matter, because she picked up the conversation the next morning without missing a beat.

"Look, I really don't care if we have sex with him again. But you can't just cut him out of your life. You need each other."

I squinted at her in the early morning light, barely awake. "I--that's not right, Mary. I just need you. You're my wife. I'm not supposed to need anyone else."

"Don't be ridiculous, John." She rolled out of bed and disappeared into the bathroom to shower before the baby got up.

Two days later and she was still at it, this time as we sat on the sofa and watched telly and ate ice cream. "John. Did you mean to hurt him?"

"No. Of course not."

"Sometimes we just hurt each other without meaning to," she said. "We're always going to hurt each other. I think that's who we are."

"A lovely thought, Mary. Thank you for that." I turned the volume up on the television. Well. Mary and Sherlock had certainly done their share of hurting me over the years. I didn't think I did it back to them, though. 

The show ended and Mary stood up to go to bed. 

"What am I supposed to do?" I asked without moving.

She sat back down next to me. "Apologize."

"Right. That'll work."

"You always take us back after we apologize. Eventually." She kissed me on the cheek and got up again, leaving me alone.

I didn't know how to fix it. I could text Sherlock and invite him over again. Sure. _Sorry about your back. Tea?_ Even if he accepted it wouldn't solve anything. I was sorry, but that didn't mean it was okay. I didn't mean to hurt him. But I didn't see how to make things better. He was always going to lie to me and keep things from me. Like Mary did, though I'd pretty much agreed that that was okay when I'd chosen not to ask about her past.

And I didn't know how to get past the idea that I could've helped him--made things better--if we'd been together before. Maybe he wouldn't even have jumped. And that would've been great. The best. Except for the part where I would never have met Mary. Which again, would've saved Sherlock from a lot of pain but still, it's not what I would choose. I would choose Mary. But also Sherlock. I guess I would choose them both. Maybe if I'd never met Mary it would be different, but that's not what happened so that's not what I had to deal with.

I actually thought about going back to therapy, just to have someone besides Mary to talk it out with. Then I thought about how that conversation would go. _Yes, you see I trust them both in that I know they both would do everything they can to avoid hurting me. But I also know they will both continue to lie me if they think it's necessary. I just need to learn how to deal with that without getting upset. Also, I'd like it if Sherlock would come over to have sex with us again._ Nope, not something I could really discuss with anyone else.

It had been a week. It was Friday again, which meant two days in a row where I didn't have work to distract me, just the prospect of Mary following me around and bringing up the same topic over and over.

At least at the moment she wasn't talking about it. We were making out on the sofa because we hadn't found anything good to watch and it was too early to go to bed.

"You're thinking about Sherlock."

I pulled back from where I'd been kissing her neck, ready to deny. "I--"

"No, not like that, I know. If it was like that you'd be enjoying yourself more." 

"Mary, I--"

"No, no, I'm not--" She shook her head and sat up straight, putting her feet down on the floor. "I'm thinking about him, too, you know. I miss him."

"It hasn't even been a week. We don't always see him every week."

"I know, but this is different. It feels permanent."

I sighed and put my arm over her shoulders, pulling her close and pressing my lips to her hair. "I spent two years thinking he was gone, you know," I said softly. "This is nothing."

She cradled my face with her hands and looked at me for a moment, then stood and pulled me to my feet. Maybe it wasn't too early to go to bed if we weren't going to sleep. She led me down the hall, shoved me onto the bed and climbed on top of me. We kept almost all of our clothes on and she didn't say a word the whole time, nothing about Sherlock or me or any new secret fantasies she might have invented. She just kissed me and fucked me until I came inside her and then she pulled off and rubbed herself until her body stuttered on top of mine in small, jerky movements that I could tell were not the most satisfying experience she'd ever had.

After a moment she relaxed against me and brushed her lips against mine, then settled into a somewhat comfortable position with one hip on the bed and most of the rest of her body on top of mine. She nestled her head in the crook of my neck and said, "I love you, John," the first words either of us had said in the last half-hour. I stroked one hand down her arm, wrapped her hand in mine, and then lost it, great heaving sobs breaking free before I'd even realized I wanted to cry.

I wept into Mary's hair. She didn't say anything, just circled her arms around me as best she could without moving away from me. I'd done the same thing the night Sherlock came back from being dead, and again after he'd been shot, before I found out it was her. So I guess maybe she was used to it.

I fell asleep with her lying half on top of me and woke up with a crick in my neck and a stiff shoulder. But I still didn't know what to do. 

In the end, it didn't really matter, because Mary and I took the baby out to get groceries Saturday afternoon and when we got back, Sherlock had let himself into our house and was waiting for us.

"Breaking into our house? Really, Sherlock?" He was sprawled in a chair in the sitting room, still wearing his coat and scarf, his feet propped up on the coffee table. "You're lucky you didn't get shot," I told him.

"Neither one of you is carrying a gun."

"Sure about that, are you?" Mary shifted the baby on her hip and gave him a sweet little smile that both disturbed me and turned me on, just a bit. 

Sherlock blinked once at her and said, "Yes, quite sure."

I pinched the bridge of my nose and gave up. "You realize that we'd have given you a key to the house if you'd asked for one at any point in the last year."

"Exactly." He smiled, a slightly less disturbing sight than Mary's grin. "So you shouldn't mind at all that I let myself in."

I sighed and Mary giggled a little, bouncing the baby, who was beginning to fuss in her arms. 

"So, you're here," I said, picking up the bags of groceries I'd dropped when I came in. "What do you want?" Probably not sex; it was the middle of the afternoon. I wasn't sure if I was relieved or disappointed.

"I need your help," he said. 

"What, a case?" I deposited the groceries in the kitchen and turned back to look at him. A case might be a good way to get back to normal; it had been a while since I'd gone out on one with him.

"No." He reached into his coat pocket and produced a zipped plastic bag filled with gauze packets and tape. "I need you to change the dressing."

I took a step toward him in surprise. "You actually went to the doctor?" 

"Yes. I told you I would. I was meant to go back yesterday but I told them I had someone who could help me with it." He held the bag out to me and Mary. "Would one of you be willing?"

"Sure," Mary said. She raised the baby up a little higher onto her shoulder. "First I need to change a nappy, though. And she's getting cranky because she took a short nap. John will do it for you." She glanced over at me and gave me a look, daring me to object. I almost volunteered to take the baby for her but I knew what I had to do.

Sherlock stood up and shrugged out of his coat and suit jacket. He looked hesitantly from Mary to me. "I did--it was treated before, you know."

"Oh, of course," Mary said. "When you were in hospital." She gave him the self-conscious little half-smile she used whenever that particular topic came up between the two of them.

Sherlock nodded. "I just never went back for the follow-up care."

"Of course you didn't," I said. "Because that would be the sensible thing to do."

"In my defense, I was pretty sick of doctors by that point." He started unbuttoning his shirt.

"Not in here. We need better light and I need to wash my hands. Come on."

We ended up in the loo, with Sherlock sitting shirtless on the lidded toilet while I wiped antibacterial cream around the newly forming scabs and covered them with medicated gauze. There was a little bit of yellowish discharge but overall the wound looked better than I remembered, although I think I may have escalated the severity in my mind over the last week.

I picked up the plastic bag to put the unused supplies away. There was another tube in the bag--ointment to treat the scars that had already formed. "Have you been using this, Sherlock? It might help minimize the other scars."

He glanced at the tube. "I don't really care what my back looks like, John."

"No, but you might care when your skin has thickened so much that you start losing mobility. You won't be able to swoop around gracefully anymore."

He stared over his shoulder at me for a moment, unblinking, then reached for his shirt. "I do not swoop."

I grabbed the shirt away from him, feeling the beginnings of anger starting to form again. I tried to channel it into words. "Sherlock, the disregard you show for yourself--you say you care about me, but I need you to care about yourself, too. I don't want you to be hurt." It was the kind of thing that was easier to say to his back than face-to-face.

I rolled the tube of cream between my hands, looking down at the scars that stood out on his pale skin. "Do you want me to?"

He shrugged. "You don't have to."

I stood still for a couple of moments, watching his back rise and fall as he breathed. "I want to."

He turned to look over his shoulder at me again. Instead of meeting his eyes I looked down at my hands as I unscrewed the cap on the ointment. Mary might think we needed to talk but I think we were doing okay like this. He'd apologized when he asked me to change the dressing for him. Now it was my turn to prove he could trust me again.

I squeezed some of the ointment out onto my fingers. "It's quite cold. Sorry," I told him, but when I put my hand against his back I found his skin was much cooler than mine. "You're freezing."

"Little bit," he said, and I watched goose pimples pop up across his shoulders as his body realized how much warmer it was supposed to be.

I rubbed the medicine in quickly, working my way down his back. Only three of the dozen or so marks were thick enough to be worrisome, but I treated them all. By the time I was done he was shivering. I capped the tube of ointment and set it on the sink.

"You should put your shirt back on," I said. When he didn't move immediately to do so I picked up the shirt for him and then leaned forward to wrap myself around him. My arms covered his arms and I pressed my chest against his back, rested my chin on his shoulder, smelling the faint scent of shampoo and aftershave beneath the ointment I'd just applied. I closed my eyes and stayed like that and he still made no effort to move. 

Long moments passed before he finally responded, lifting his hands from his lap to put them over mine as I hugged him. He turned his head a fraction toward my face and whispered, "Thank you."

I nodded against him, not quite trusting my voice to speak. 

"You're poking me with your chin," he said, and the moment was over, thank God.

"Your sideburn stubble is scratching my ear," I told him, pushing myself up and away from him. I didn't even realize he had sideburn stubble. I pushed aside the curl that fell in front of his ear and ran my finger over the skin there. Yes, there was a bit of roughness. I fluffed his stray curl back into place and then thrust his shirt at him. "Get dressed and I'll make some tea to warm you up."

 

Sherlock stayed for supper and then Mary fed the baby and then she came back out of the nursery and handed her to Sherlock. "Try again," she said. "We're going to want a lot more baby-sitting over the next ten years or so."

Sherlock took her willingly, looking surprisingly at ease holding a sleepy-eyed yet still squirming ten-month-old. "It's someone's bedtime," he said, his voice an octave higher and more sing-song than usual. He carried her down the hall toward the nursery, and I don't care what he thinks, he does swoop when he walks, quite often.

Mary took me by the hand and pulled me into the kitchen, out of earshot. "What do you want to do, John?"

"What do you mean? Tonight or in general?" I think I was just trying to buy more time before I had to answer. She saw right through me, shaking her head and then stepping close to rest one hand on my hip and the other on my shoulder.

"Both. Do you want to continue what we've started with him, or stop? I think we would all be okay either way, but you need to decide."

I put my head down and thought, feeling her hands stroke slowly against my clothes. I exhaled and looked her in the eye and gave her the best answer I could. "I want--both of you. I want to be married to you and partners with Sherlock--sex partners, the three of us--and I want to live at Baker Street and I want to stay in this house and I want to watch the baby grow up and be a father and maybe have more babies and I want to keep my job at the clinic and I want to go out on cases with Sherlock all the time and I want to be a stay-at-home dad and I think I'd also like to teach someday."

She looked back at me for a long moment, her hands still now. Then she said, "You really want to teach?"

"Maybe. That part's negotiable."

She laughed and drew me closer in a very tight hug. "I can't promise all of that but we can do our best, okay?"

I nodded and squeezed her against me. "Thank you," I said.

"Well, I'm enjoying it, too, you know," she said. "Come on, let's see if the super-genius detective managed to defeat the baby at bedtime this time around."

He did manage it; there were a couple whimpers from both participants and then Sherlock tiptoed out of the nursery, pulling the door shut behind him. He smiled when he found us standing in the darkened hall, and Mary reached out and pulled him toward our bedroom.

Sherlock sat down in the chair to take off his shoes while Mary immediately stripped off all her clothes and then settled on the bed. Sherlock and I both stared at her in surprise.

"What? Can't a girl be eager? Anyway, tonight John gets to pick what we're doing." Sherlock raised his eyebrows at her but didn't object. Mary went on, "Anything you want, love. You can be in the middle again if you want."

I thought about it. I did really, really enjoy being in between the two of them, but I wasn't sure if I was ready for that again. I'd ended up completely giving control over to them last time, something I was not willing to do right now. I looked at the two of them, Mary naked on the bed and Sherlock lounging in the chair, shoes off and shirt unbuttoned. There were so many other possibilities--which should we try? Definitely something that involved all three of us at once. 

I smiled at Mary. "How about we go back to what started all this?"

It took her a moment, then she got it. "Oh, you mean my idea?"

"Yes, your filthy little fantasy that got us into this whole mess."

"Mm, all right." Mary snuggled back against the pillows. 

Sherlock looked expectantly from her to me. "Well?"

"Figure it out, genius," I told him. "What were we doing when Mary had her bright idea?"

Sherlock huffed and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. "Fine. I'll play along." He stood up and unbuttoned his trousers, canted his hips so they fell to the ground and then stepped out of them, managing to make the whole process look both dignified and sexy. "Let's see, today's Saturday, so it would've been exactly four weeks ago today. Both off work for the weekend, so you had plenty of energy, taking it slow . . . ." He folded his hands and pressed them against his chin for a moment, looking down at us, then continued. "Nothing too adventurous, or Mary wouldn't have bothered to fantasize."

I looked over at Mary; her furrowed brow told me she wasn't sure if that was an insult or not, either. 

Sherlock was still studying us; I would've said he wasn't going to figure it out, but this was Sherlock, after all. He could figure out anything. I licked my lips in anticipation, realizing too late that the action might give him a clue. 

He frowned at me. "You wouldn't have started with that, then she wouldn't want to kiss--oh, of course. She had you in her mouth." He grinned at me and then gestured at Mary. "Well, go on, I'm right, aren't I? Show me."

"Show you?" she asked.

"You want us to re-enact it for you, is that it?"

"Of course. Isn't that the point of this?" He shook his head at us idiots and bent to pull off his socks.

I chuckled and stripped out of my clothes. I wasn't hard at all yet, but Mary knew what to do. She started with her hands, long strokes as I knelt over her chest, my cock pressing against her breasts as it grew hard.

She smiled, her gaze soft and unfocused, as she pulled me up and toward her mouth. She firmed her lips against me at first, kissing down my length and then back up before she opened her mouth and let me inside.

Somehow I'd forgotten how much more intense everything seemed when Sherlock was watching. Mary had her eyes closed and was working her tongue around the top of my cock and I tried to remember exactly what we'd done that night four weeks ago. I didn't get very far before Sherlock interrupted.

"You can't have done that for long. Mary wouldn't have been able to talk, so you must have--"

"Hang on, give us a moment, here," I said. "I've barely had time to get hard."

Sherlock sighed, but I could tell he wasn't really annoyed. "Fine. But you don't want me to get bored, do you?" Before I could answer he pulled off his pants, dropped his shirt on the floor and climbed onto the bed above Mary's head, knees on the pillows. "Move down a bit, you've plenty of room."

Mary released me for a moment and slid farther down the bed; I followed her, my cock straining to return to her mouth. She put her hands up to my hips and centered me again; I closed my eyes as she licked me and then took me in again.

Sherlock shifted on the pillows behind Mary's head and then I felt his hands on my shoulders. "This was definitely not part of the fantasy," I said. 

"Shut up, John," he told me and then leaned forward over Mary's head to kiss me.

Beneath us, Mary moaned around my cock, sending shudders up through my whole body. I gasped against Sherlock's mouth and he bit at my bottom lip, tugging gently. I pressed my tongue between his teeth and discovered that having my tongue sucked at the same time as my cock was a uniquely satisfying experience. I wondered if I would even be able to make it to the end of this little re-enactment.

Sherlock pulled away from the kiss, holding my head between his hands. "So she sucked you but then you wanted more. You wanted to be--"

"No." My cock slid out of Mary's mouth as she sat up a bit, Sherlock's cock bobbing next to her head. She turned her head and gave him a lick, then said, "It was me. I wanted him in me." She pushed me down the bed, just as she'd done a month ago. I went willingly enough, my cock finding its way into her hot, wet body with no resistance. 

"Ah, I see. And then you were free to talk." Sherlock's cock rested, fully engorged, against the side of Mary's head, his dark curls mingling with the blond hair on her head. He gave himself a few strokes and put his other hand on her lips, but it seemed he'd reached the end of what he was able to deduce. "What--how did I come into the picture?"

Mary sucked Sherlock's first two fingers into her mouth, then released them. "I said I missed having his cock in my mouth, and what if someone else were here?"

He looked up from her face and I caught his eye. "And the someone else was--me?" He still looked a little confused, but then I guess he didn't have a lot of experience with fantasizing out loud in the heat of the moment. 

"It was you," I confirmed. "Her idea, and I didn't know she really meant it until the next morning." I pushed myself up a bit so I could kiss him again without sliding out of Mary, though it did make my rhythm falter. "Your turn, now. She said she wanted you in her mouth, while I fucked her, and I could press my chest against your back. So turn around." I pulled gently at his side and he shifted carefully around Mary's head until he was straddling her chest, just as I had been moments ago. In reality we were all a lot closer to each other than we had been in my mind; even if I'd wanted to I couldn't have avoided pressing against him, his scarred, cool back fitting perfectly against my scarred, sweaty chest.

Sherlock shuddered and sighed, though I assume it was triggered by whatever Mary was doing to him and not my touch alone. I knew she must have taken him into her mouth, but I couldn't see past his broad, long back, another detail I'd omitted from my fantasy. No matter. I wrapped both my arms around his torso and leaned into him. He put one hand over mine where they met on his chest and braced himself against the headboard with the other. 

I moved my hips against Mary and she thrust back against me, her whole body moving as she worked both of us at once. I pulled my left hand back from Sherlock and held it against her clit, wiping her off with her own hair first so she could enjoy some sort of friction. She was very, very wet. She let out a muffled moan and I felt her fingers slip in to intertwine with my right hand where Sherlock held it against his chest. 

Sherlock barely moved; I could see the tension in his body as he held himself still, probably trying not to crush Mary with his weight or choke her with his cock. I decided I wanted to come first, then let the two of them change positions if they wanted, but I didn't get the chance. Mary started to tense up beneath me and I instinctively started rubbing small circles against her clit, the way I knew she liked, and then her hips were arching up beneath me and I felt the waves of her orgasm clench around me while she shuddered. I wanted to stay in her but she gasped and shook and pressed a hand against my hip until I took the hint and pulled out of her suddenly over-sensitive body. 

"Sorry, sorry," she said. I moved to the side and I could see her face now; she turned her head away from Sherlock's cock while she caught her breath. "Just give me a minute."

"It's all right." Sherlock moved as if to get off of her but she stopped him. 

I looked at the two of them and had an idea. I dragged my hand through Mary's soaking wet pubic hair, coating my fingers with plenty of natural lubricant. Sherlock froze, hovering over Mary's chest, as I slipped my middle finger down his arse crack and just inside. 

"This all right?" I asked. He didn't answer for a moment, then nodded and I felt the ring of muscle inside him begin to relax. Mary looked up at me over Sherlock's thigh and grinned and then turned her mouth back his cock.

I straddled Mary again, higher this time, my knees on either side of her stomach. There was just enough room between me and Sherlock for me to grab my own cock with my free hand. I slid another wet finger into him and he groaned and pushed back against me. Beneath me, Mary's body shifted slightly as she adjusted her position to follow his movements.

I didn't have much room to stroke myself if I wanted to keep my fingers in Sherlock, but the noises he was making more than made up for the lack of mobility. He leaned forward over Mary, which improved the angle of my fingers. It also put my cock against his arse. Fuck. Too soon for that, and I might need to get some actual lube if I didn't want to hurt him. I didn't want to hurt him. I couldn't resist rutting against him, though, my cock painting slick lines across the top of his arse, a few inches below the fresh gauze I'd put on him. I put my free hand on his shoulder blade, caressing the scar that cut across it, and Sherlock made a deeper noise than the ones he'd made before and thrust his hips forward and Mary didn't flinch and then he was shaking to pieces between us, the muscles of his arse convulsing around my two fingers as the rest of his body trembled and shook. 

When he'd mostly stilled I slid my fingers out of him and he gave one final shudder and that was it for me--I tried to grab my cock to catch the spill but it was too late. My vision greyed out for a minute and my thighs squeezed around Mary's torso hard enough for her to squeak in protest.

"Oh, shit," I said, when I could see and process thoughts again. "Sherlock, er, you're going to have to change that bandage again. Sorry." 

Mary handed me some tissues and I tried to wipe him off without touching the gauze but it was pretty much a lost cause. I gave up and Sherlock rolled over onto the open side of the bed and sighed in contentment.

"So that was the idea that got us into this mess?" he asked. 

"Some of it," I said. "I was improvising quite a bit at the end there."

"It's a pretty good mess," he said, stretching out to fill as much of the bed as possible as Mary turned on her side and ran her fingers through his sex-mussed hair.

I grinned and murmured an agreement. It was more than pretty good; it was a glorious, complicated mess that was frustrating and tantalizing and fun and that I hoped would continue for a long, long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! This was my first attempt at fanfiction and I really enjoyed writing and posting it. I have other works planned, but I think I need to find a beta or two first since my other ideas involve actual plot and that is definitely not my strong point.
> 
> Part 2 of the series is a very short companion piece from Sherlock's POV.
> 
> If you enjoyed this story, please come visit my tumblr: [missdaviswrites](http://missdaviswrites.tumblr.com/)


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